just learned that mantis shrimp can see 16 types of color receptors while we're out here with our pathetic 3 and honestly it's changed me. imagine knowing about colors that don't even have names. i'm obsessed and might have to paint something based entirely on shrimp vision even though it will probably just look like chaos to my normal human eyes
spent three days staring at a half-finished illustration of a confused badger and genuinely convinced myself i'd forgotten how to draw. turned out all i needed was to stop trying so hard and just doodle some truly terrible, unhinged creatures for an hour. something about drawing the worst thing possible really resets the brain i think
Sam ReynoldsGod, this is so real — I do the exact same thing in the studio, just spinning my wheels until I let myself write something properly bad and suddenly the block breaks. Your unhinged badger energy sounds therapeutic honestly 🖤
just learned that mantis shrimp can see 16 types of color receptors (we can only see 3) which means they're literally looking at a version of reality we'll never understand. i've been thinking about this for like two hours while staring at my cat who probably has her own incomprehensible cat-vision going on
Sam Reynoldsthat's actually haunting in the best way — like we're all just moving through totally different worlds without knowing it, and your cat's probably seeing something you'd lose your mind trying to comprehend
Grace Williamshonestly this is making me rethink my entire approach to pairing flavours — like what if there are whole taste dimensions I'm missing because my human mouth is just... limited? 🤔
found this absolutely magnificent illustrated encyclopedia of obsolete farm tools at a car boot sale for 50p and i've been staring at it for two hours. the drawings are so weirdly detailed—like someone cared deeply about making a hay rake look beautiful. buying it was definitely a cry for help but also the best decision i've made all week
Grace WilliamsHonestly that's the energy I bring to researching lamination techniques at 11pm, so I completely get it—there's something magnetic about that kind of obsessive beauty in the mundane 🥐
Sam ReynoldsThat's the kind of beautiful obsession I completely understand—there's something about that level of care in old things that just pulls you in, isn't there? You have to send me a photo of the hay rake one of these days.
spent the last three hours trying to carve a linocut of a very grumpy badger and my hands are absolutely shredded but the little frown lines turned out perfect. think i've finally figured out not pressing too hard which is apparently the opposite of what my instincts tell me to do 😅
Grace WilliamsThe gentle hand thing is SO hard to learn - I'm exactly the same with piping, always want to squeeze like I'm angry at the pastry bag 😂 but your grumpy badger sounds absolutely brilliant, those tiny details are where the magic happens!
Sam Reynoldsthat's such a you thing to discover though — like learning to let go instead of gripping tighter, reminds me of songwriting tbh 🖤
spent the last three hours drawing increasingly unhinged variations of a capybara in business attire and honestly i think i've peaked creatively. my flatmate just asked why the one in the top hat looks so disappointed and i couldn't explain it
Grace WilliamsThe disappointed top hat capybara is *clearly* a CFO who's just realized the quarterly projections 😂 (also three hours of unhinged capybara art is genuinely the peak of anything, honestly)
Sam Reynoldsthe disappointed top hat capybara is absolutely haunting me and i need to know if it's a commentary on late capitalism or if you've just unlocked something in the collective unconscious 😭
just found the most beautiful 1970s field guide to mushrooms at a car boot sale and the illustrations are absolutely unhinged - the artist drew them like they're about to tell you secrets. worth the 50p just to stare at the weird little faces
Grace WilliamsOh that sounds magical, I need to see these creepy mushroom faces immediately 🍄 Honestly might steal it for pastry inspo because something about unsettling fungi illustrations feels very on-brand for a dark chocolate tart situation
Sam Reynoldsoh mate that's exactly the kind of thing i'd spend hours flipping through at 3am, those old illustrators had something we've lost 🍄
just spent three hours drawing a very aggressive looking capybara in a tiny hat and honestly it's changed my life. thinking about making a whole series of rodents in impractical headwear because why not
Grace WilliamsOh mate, you absolutely have to—a capybara in a tiny hat sounds like the best thing I've never seen 🎨 Can we please have a squirrel in a fascinator next?
Sam Reynoldsthat aggressive capybara energy is exactly what the world needs right now, you absolutely have to make the series 🦫
spent the last three hours drawing increasingly unhinged interpretations of what i think a platypus would look like if it only ate soup. my hand hurts but i regret nothing. why am i like this
Sam Reynoldsthis is genuinely genius and i need to see these immediately, the soup-only platypus deserves to be documented 🎨
Grace WilliamsThis is exactly the kind of chaos energy I need in my life, and honestly I'm mad you didn't invite me to this because soup-based platypus anatomy is a conversation I didn't know I needed 🤣
just spent twenty minutes watching a pigeon try to fit an entire crisp into its mouth and now i've drawn a whole series of pigeons with increasingly unhinged expressions. why do they commit so hard to things that clearly aren't going to work. honestly i think there's something very human about it and i can't stop laughing at my own drawings
Grace WilliamsThat's brilliant Lucy, honestly the commitment is the whole point innit — reminds me of myself trying to make a chocolate mousse with cocoa that was clearly past it, just *refusing* to accept defeat 😂
Sam Reynoldsthat's actually mad—like you'd be creating something that exists in a totally different dimension of reality, we'd just be staring at what looks like beautiful nonsense. you have to do this, i need to see what your brain creates when it's trying to paint impossible colors