#wingedheroes

It’s the last day you can get a signed copy of Winged Heroes with a $10 subscription to my Patreon! (Or, if you’ve been a Patron before and want to come back, you can get it at the $2 level.) This is THE ONLY WAY to get a signed copy from me currently!

I’ve included here a couple other things I’ve shared on Patreon and nowhere else (a scrapped cover for WH, a bird model painting project, and some nature photography) as examples of other perks.

If you’ve been thinking about it, today’s the day! And if you sign up today, I will have the book in the mail to you this week. :)

That’s it! Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. Back to regularly scheduled nature art programming. <3

#lastday #patreonpitch #wingedheroes #virginiagreene #finalpitch #birdart #supportbirdartists #thankyou #birdcomics
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It’s week 3 of January, and I still have signed copies of Winged Heroes to give away to new $10+ Patrons! (And $2+ past Patrons who sign back up!)
This is the ONLY way to get a me-signed copy of Winged Heroes (short of chasing me down to get a signature on a book you already own). Sign up today, and I’ll get your book in the mail to you tomorrow! And thank you to those of you who have joined me so far–please let me know when you get your books. :)

I realized the other day I’ve been on Patreon for a long time. As a result, I have quite a bit of Patreon-only content already posted and immediately accessible–tutorials, behind-the-scenes, concept art for Winged Heroes and other projects, process videos, and more. If you enjoyed the story of my holiday cards in December, you would also likely enjoy the “story” of my Patreon journey, told through posts over the years. And all of that is accessible at the $2 a month level.

In 2022, I’m adding a lot more to Patreon–more art, more tutorials, more comics, more behind the scenes, more stories, and some new things too. If that sounds interesting to you, please come join us on Patreon! (The link is in my bio.) And thank you either way for following my work! <3

#wingedheroes #joinmeonpatreon #birdart #giveaway #specialoffer #thankyou #lookingahead
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Last week Audubon reported hundreds of dead and dying songbirds who had struck buildings in NYC. Looking at the pictures makes my heart hurt. Unfortunately, this isn’t a rare event–window strikes of all kinds are thought to kill up to a billion birds a year (Loss, 2014) all over the country. NYC has a lot of windows, a lot of lights, and is smack in the path of the Atlantic Flyway–and so every migration birds get disoriented and die from striking windows that look (to them) like just more sky.

These facts about birds and buildings are why we included window strikes in NYC in the first few pages of Winged Heroes. Mya and I wanted this book to be a fun read (and it is!), but it was important to us to confront real issues that birds face in today’s world. In this scene, I took care to depict the real species (a LOT of warblers) that die needlessly every year from these events.

Real birds do not have Avian Superheroes there to redirect their flight paths away from danger–so it is up to us humans to help mitigate window strikes, as individuals and as organizations. Treating windows to make them more apparent to birds (many, many ways to do this!) and turning off lights at night are ways to minimize window strikes–and if you are planning a building, taking the possibility of strikes into account when designing windows.
For more information, check out both Audubon’s and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s resources on window strikes.

#art #illu #illustration #drawing #painting #digital #comic #cartoon #artist #bird #birdartist #artistsoninstagram #graphicnovel #wingedheroes #warblers #windowstrike
#clientwork #kidart #educuation #scienceeducation
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I illustrated a graphic novel!!!! And you can buy it NOW!
It was a joy to work with author Mya Thompson (and many others!) to bring Emilio and friends to life in Winged Heroes: For All Birdkind!
I learned a ton on this project about how much work goes into a book (from all different directions) and I am so excited that it’s going to exist (after a pandemic-caused near miss). Two years of ink, sweat, and virtual paint will be on the shelves of bookstores on September 7th, and is available for pre-order on Amazon or at your local comic book store now!

Thank you especially to Mya Thompson, the author and mastermind, and Jill Leichter, the glue that held this project together, for pacing back and forth with thumbnails all over the walls of the Cornell Lab with me in 2018 and 2019 to make this book happen. I hope y'all are proud of it too!!
Swipe for some of my favorite images from the book, and let me know what you think when you read it! :)
#graphicnovels #art #illu #illustration #drawing #painting #artist #bird #pigeon #city #NYC #CornellLab #birdartist #cartoons #comics #comic #peregrinefalcon #wingedheroes #birdheroes #graphicnovel #kidlit #graphicnovelsforkids #gratitude #digital #ink #publishedbook #published #whew

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