one night a year. This is the Chinese Qixi festival
This is inspired by my favorite Chinese holiday, Qixi (also called Qiqiao). The story goes that a weaver girl or fairy from heaven fell in love with a humble cowherd and married him. For going against her parents' wishes, they were exiled to the heavens, she as the star Vega , and he as Altair. The magpies took pity on them and flew to the heavens to form a bridge over the Milky Way so they can be together for one night a year. So touching and romantic! For this reason, some people call Qixi "Chinese Valentine's Day." I created the space background by hand on my computer, placing semi-random dots and blobs. For the magpies, I referenced photographs of Asian magpies, but I drew them by hand on the computer. I thought iridescence in the tail would make them look more magical. As always, there was no AI used in the creation of my design. This could conceivably be used for wallpaper, but the birds will be rather small.