Nick Thornborrow

Oh sheesh, I love your work! So glad to have stumbled on your account!

1000s of protesters in front of the Alberta legislature.

Protestor wearing a giant caricature mask of Premier Danielle Smith. There is a pride flag sticking out of her mouth that has the word “lies” written on it in reference to recent laws that have come into effect this month to prevent trans youth from participating in sports among other things. The Danielle Smith impersonator is also carrying a sign that says “make kids stupid again”

More of this energy please, Alberta!
Massive rally in support of teachers who go on strike tomorrow in my province!

Nah, but media reporting on science? Maybe.

Thanks! That’s really kind to say :)

This is so so cool.

If you see this, post something monochromatic.

Thanks! I was pretty pleased with how that one came together. Totally surreal seeing it on a real book too.

Cartoon illustration. Two kids exploring an island at dusk. Lighthouse in background. Girl is holding a flashlight and wearing a pink hoodie stepping off a rock. Boy wide stance wearing a backpack.

Cover illustration for “Story of the Saints” featuring a bearded take on st Francis and a wolf

Cover for “did you hear what happened in Salem?” Featuring two paranoid looking puritan girls whispering against a spooky background.

A barbarian and a nymph wadi g through a stream.

Thanks for the prompt! I’m Nick and I illustrate books, and tory board and direct cinematics on video games.

Kids live in a society and their voices ought to be heard, but also Evan Li isn’t a kid. He’s mere months away from being able to vote. The youngest guy in my college class was the same age as Evan is now. There’s more at stake for Evan and his peers with the strike than for Bruce who got his.

Actual government censorship in Alberta.
Bruce McAllister should resign in any public capacity, but he should absolutely maintain his fear of young people.

Painting of a detail from a brick 1900s public building. The detail is of a dormer jutting out of a shingled roof. The dormer has three windows. A central arched window and two smaller windows flanking it. It’s crowned with a concrete trim, and a concrete keystone on the arched window.

Tonight’s plein air sketch. It was a fun way to spend an evening with neighbours. Grateful to everyone who showed up and made some art!

Gouache sketch of an old brick elementary school.

Gouache painting of an old brick elementary school.

What are we all doing this Sunday?
I know what I’m doing and I’m kinda nervouscited about it. I’m running a plein air workshop for my local neighborhood community group. These two paintings were in preparation for this event. Wish me luck!

In about twenty minutes, I’ll be presenting How to Lead a Writing Team at @flightsoffoundry.bsky.social. It’s online, and registration is free! Hope to see you there. flights-of-foundry.org

Mind blowing craftsmanship

Manifesting an illustrated annotated book of Dieworkwears Bluesky threads.

And what am I but a janky NPC?

Someone stole my bike from my garage and they left a different bike. And it’s a decent bike. Not that I’m keeping it, it’s certainly stolen too, but, why? You had a bike. And I liked my bike.

On the surface, the new guideline stating ‘adult art may not depict non-consensual acts’ sounds sensible. But the grey area is so vast. Like we’ve all seen those retro pinup illustrations depicting unexpected wardrobe mishaps. A non consensual exposure. Could I post that?

Of course my self censored image got hit with an auto label 😛

… it’s a tiny outspoken fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the user base who would better us all by turning on their hide NSFW content toggle in their user settings than imposing their values on the entire Bluesky user base. FIN.

As an addendum, how many of the 14000 users consulted were nsfw artists/performers/creators and how much weight was their voice given considering they’re the most deeply affected by these guidelines? That number gives this a democratic Vermeer, but…

We all have the tools at our disposal to curate our timelines and I’d welcome improvements to those tools, but I resent the puritanical sanitizing forces that appear to be at work not just here on this platform but in every facet of our lives.

Back to Bluesky. I have no evidence to back this up but my gut tells me the ambiguity in these guidelines will disproportionately affect marginalized creators, especially LGBTQ+ creators.

One was about suffering abuse and leaving the Christian faith, and the others dealt with queer themes. I know. I too was surprised.

The government (who huffed mightily) narrowed their definition to target the four graphic novels they actually wanted bans on. Wanna guess the subject and themes of those books?

The government accused the board of vicious compliance, but if you’re a bureaucrat you’re always going to err on the side of caution when responding to a ministerial order. Dutiful public servants follow the letter of the law.

Alberta recently asked all school libraries to flag for removal any books depicting explicit sexual acts. The Edmonton school board returned a list of hundreds of books that included literary classics.

Ok… but if I take the terms literally, and I’m the stickler moderator on duty, this example falls under the umbrella of impermissible art.

“Oh Nick, don’t be silly. We all know what we mean when we say depictions of non-consensual activity and that example does not clear the bar.”

On the surface, the new guideline stating ‘adult art may not depict non-consensual acts’ sounds sensible. But the grey area is so vast. Like we’ve all seen those retro pinup illustrations depicting unexpected wardrobe mishaps. A non consensual exposure. Could I post that?