This post accompanies the full process video for Birds of a Feather.
For the first time, I recorded commentary alongside the work, talking through the decisions, doubts, and turning points as the piece developed. Rather than a tutorial, this is documentation. A record of how the drawing moved from uncertainty toward form, and how staying with it long enough allowed meaning to surface.
The piece begins with an eyes-closed drawing. I draw without looking, rotate the paper, and then start responding to what appears. As the work progressed, audience feedback confirmed some of what I was already seeing, while intuition pushed other elements forward. The birds, the figure, and the structure of light all emerged through that tension between external response and internal direction.
There were several moments where the piece felt at risk. Late additions, palette decisions, density, and restraint all came into question. Some of those moments are visible in the video. Others are spoken aloud. In the end, the process itself became part of the work.
I chose to leave the commentary unscored. No music. Just the voice, the marks, and the pacing of the piece as it unfolded.
Artwork details Birds of a Feather
Ross W.
Mixed media on paper
10.8X15.3 cm
2026.01.22
Prints will be available via Redbubble. The original piece is available on a make-me-an-offer basis.
If you’ve been following this work as it developed, thank you for staying with it.
This piece took shape slowly, and not always willingly.
Birds of a Feather began without a clear endpoint. Like most of my work, it started with a few lines, a loose idea, and a rule I often return to: fill the page. From there, it grew through accumulation rather than intention. Each stage revealed the next problem instead of a solution.
Along the way, there were wins and losses. Some decisions held. Others resisted, warped, or forced revision. The paper itself carries evidence of that resistance. Overworked areas, corrections, and compromises are not hidden here. They are part of the record.
What makes this piece different is not the result, but the way it was shared.
This is the first work where the full process unfolded publicly in short form as it happened. Each stage existed on its own, without knowing how the next would resolve. In that sense, the audience saw the same uncertainty I was working through. Nothing was backfilled after the fact.
Finishing the piece did not resolve every question it raised. It rarely does. But it did clarify something important for me. Process is not something that happens behind the work. It is the work. The finished image is simply where the movement stopped.
I plan to release a longer process video with commentary, not to explain the piece into submission, but to reflect on how it evolved and where it pushed back. Not as a tutorial. Not as a defense. Just as an honest accounting.
This clip shows the moment I start introducing a light source into Birds of a Feather.
Up until now, the piece has been mostly structure. Lines, forms, and placement. Adding light changes how everything relates to everything else.
The light sits behind the tree and begins to push forward through the branches. From here on, every decision has to respond to it. What’s lit. What falls away. What stays quiet.
Still recovering, so I’m keeping this one simple. Just a small but important shift in the work.
This reflection accompanies Part 3 of Birds of a Feather.
Before everything ground to a halt, I shared Part 3 of Birds of a Feather. At the time, it felt like progress.
Not dramatic progress. Just the steady kind. Lines accumulating. Forms emerging. Something quietly moving forward. I posted it and expected the usual rhythm to continue.
Then it stopped.
I got sick. Work became heavier in ways that had nothing to do with the job itself. Stress crept into places it likes to hide, sleep, skin, appetite, motivation. The system I rely on to keep moving simply said no.
What followed was not a clean pause. It was a compression.
When life interrupts like that, your world narrows. Time stops stretching forward and starts folding inward. Everything collapses into the next hour, the next task. Survival replaces productivity. Ambition goes quiet.
I did not stop thinking. I never do. My mind keeps moving even when my body cannot.
What I noticed first was how quickly momentum evaporates when the conditions change. How easily forward motion is mistaken for stability. And how instinctively I turn frustration inward, as if difficulty is a personal failure instead of a function of life.
Then I noticed something else.
The work did not vanish.
The piece I was making did not resent the interruption. It did not decay or lose meaning because I stepped away. If anything, it waited. Like a bird on a wire, present for now, ready to lift off the moment conditions change.
That image carried a lesson I was slow to accept.
We tend to treat progress as something that must be protected at all costs. We cling to momentum as proof that we are still moving forward, still becoming, still on track. When that momentum breaks, panic fills the gap. We assume we are falling behind, even when there is no clear destination.
But progress is not a straight line. It is not even a curve. It is a compass, not a vehicle. A way of staying aligned rather than a measure of speed or distance.
You return to the work after interruption.
You return to your body after being cut off from it.
You return to yourself after being pulled too far out.
The return matters more than the momentum that came before it.
Over the last stretch, I made small changes. I slowed my eating. I switched from coffee to tea. I stopped forcing output when my system was clearly overloaded. I focused on restoring basic order before demanding anything more.
To me, this felt heroic. These efforts felt like trying to move a mountain, like lifting a monumental weight. Some days I could lift it. Some days I could not.
The fog did not lift all at once. It thinned. Enough to take a bearing, and to realign myself with the larger picture.
Birds of a Feather has been a practice in pattern recognition. About how shapes repeat, how figures emerge from chaos, how meaning forms whether it is rushed or allowed to take its time. In hindsight, the interruption belongs to the piece as much as the lines do. The pause is part of the composition.
So this is not a restart. It is a continuation.
If you are reading this while feeling stalled, behind, or quietly ashamed of how long something has taken, here is the truth I am relearning in real time.
You are not late.
You are not broken.
You are not required to suffer to justify your journey.
Sometimes the most important movement is simply staying oriented toward what matters, even while everything else feels like a detour.
The work will be there when you return.
The birds do not scatter forever.
I’m at a point where this piece has stopped feeling like something I’m making and started feeling like something I’m part of.
The paper is overworked. It’s warped from saturation. I smudged ink while trying to control a section that didn’t want to behave. Normally, that’s the point where I reset, restart, or quietly abandon the work.
This time, I didn’t.
That decision feels small, but it’s become the core of the piece. It isn’t really about the image anymore. It’s about staying.
Staying means resisting a very familiar impulse. I have a strong instinct to erase, redo, perfect, or start fresh whenever friction shows up. Not just in art. In projects. In plans. In life.
The past couple of days carry that same feeling. Being mid-stride, mid-decision, with no clean reset available. Work, finances, energy, time, all slightly misaligned.
The warped paper mirrors that state exactly. The conditions aren’t ideal, but they’re real. And I’m already here.
In the short that accompanies this post, I use the phrase begrudging the smudging. That wording matters to me because it’s honest. I don’t like the smudge. I wish it weren’t there. I notice it every time I look at the page. But I’m not pretending it’s a happy accident, and I’m not treating it like a fatal flaw either.
Begrudging is a very specific emotional position. It’s resistance without retreat.
That’s where I am right now. Not at peace, but not fleeing. Still working. Still showing up. Still pushing the ink around.
I also say welcoming the warping, and that’s different. Smudging feels like a mistake. Warping feels structural. I knew it would happen before I started. I chose this sketchbook for its size and simplicity. Thin paper came with that.
I call it practice, but I never treat it casually. Once I’m in, I push the piece to its limits. I work the details, accept what’s lost, and continue. I don’t finish everything, but I’m getting better at following through.
At some point, you either fight the material endlessly, or you accept the conditions and work with them.
The short closes on the line Progress, and catastrophe. A perfect symphony.
Right now, that line reflects how I’m thinking about movement itself. I’m no longer convinced that progress and damage are opposites. Things don’t improve just because they continue. But they also don’t stop breaking just because you pause.
Most of the meaningful changes in my life involve improvement and loss happening at the same time. More skill. More clarity. More exhaustion. More wear.
That’s why the symphony metaphor fits for me. It suggests structure without control. Many parts moving at once, each following its own logic.
Progress is intentional. Catastrophe is often unintentional. They don’t take turns. They coexist.
Life keeps moving whether you like every sound or not.
Lately, my energy shifts away from urgency. There’s less panic about speed and more attention to endurance. This piece comes out of that shift. It’s smaller, quieter, less ambitious on the surface. But it’s closer to the truth of where I actually am than something polished would be.
I’m tolerating imperfection longer. I’m letting things exist in an unresolved state without forcing closure.
In the first stage, I was making loose, automatic scribbles, letting the marks accumulate without a clear direction. Somewhere in that process, a figure became visible. A head. A man. A mind crowded with ideas. Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
What surprised me was that others noticed it as well. It didn’t change my direction. It confirmed the form was truly there.
This second part leans into that truth. I brought the figure forward, clarified it, and gave it enough structure to stand on its own.
The piece is still unfinished. There are other elements present that haven’t surfaced yet, and I daydream about adding to the vibe.
