Happy Valentine’s Day!

My sweetheart and I are apart this Valentine’s Day but, thankfully, we are in the home stretch of our year in two cities!

Guadalajara Bird

I was drawing a map of Guadalajara the other day, for no particular reason, and discovered a bird walking in the streets. Do you see it?

He reminds me of a fella who took a long walk on the beach with me in Puerto Vallarta.

My sketch was just a small section of the city. I checked google maps and, sure enough, there are more streets that look like tail feathers. This can’t be a coincidence! Is it my imagination or were the city planners having some fun? I added the “tail” streets to my sketch and colored the map to highlight the bird, a creature I’ve named Birdalajara.

The areas in green are actual parks, the rest of the colors were inspired by the Mexican ceramics and tiles that I love so much.

Pacific

I was just finishing up this map when I received an email  announcing this week’s Illustration Friday prompt, ocean. Perfecto!

It’s become a family tradition to ring in the new year in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One of the many things that we love to do while there is go out on a boat and explore. The orange lines on this map show the approximate paths of some of the trips we’ve taken. Over the years we’ve gone whale watching, snorkling, bird watching and have seen manta rays the size of a bed sheet.  This year, we took a night time boat trip. There is something so exciting about being out on the water in the dark under a sky full of sparkly stars. I can’t wait to do it again! Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Snow

This week’s prompt for Illustration Friday is Snow. We haven’t had much snow around here, so I was happy to notice some flurries on my blog. Wishing you and your families peace, love and good health in the new year!

Water

I’ve always been someone who loves to see and hear the crash of ocean waves, but the relaxing ripples of Lake Ontario have completely enchanted me. Last night a full moon made the water especially sparkly. Hard to believe that it could be frozen solid in six months!

Here are more a couple more looks at our Weekword, water:

Jen at Timballoo
Emma at the Gift Shed

I choose Jen to do the honors and pick our next word. Visit Timballoo if you’d like to join in!

Summer!

It is entirely appropriate that I begin this post with the Time Fly. This charming creature was sent to me by dear friend, Shelley Noble, and is the first piece of personal mail that I have received at my new Canadian address! Time Flies are featured in her fabulous, hand made, stop motion, animation movie, Halfland. They control the speed of time, and let me tell you, around here it has been moving way to quickly! I am late with this week’s weekword post! The Time Fly arrived in the nick of time!

Last week our word was Summer, posted by the lovely Emma at the Gift Shed.

Hurry and get yourself a copy of the Spring/Summer issue of SewStylish Magazine before they are all gone! I thoroughly enjoyed creating a map (of sorts) for the article, Sewing without a Map. (click to see the full illo) I found this article extremely helpful, especially for following vintage patterns or for those times when you might want to deconstruct a favorite but worn out dress and remake make it anew. The magazine is packed with lots of other fun sewing projects and tips too!

I hope you’ve been enjoying summer so far. I spent the first part of the season packing, packing, packing and moving.

We’ve all had some adjusting to do.

I will be spending the rest of the summer relaxing/recuperating, exploring and setting up the new nest.

I’ve been tapped to post the next weekword! Let’s see what you can do with the word water. If you’d like to join,  just leave a comment here and I will list your entry on my post this Friday!

Forgotten

Lately I have been enjoying the poetry of W. S. Merwin. Above are a few lines from one of my favorite poems, Far Company. It describes a vague memory so perfectly.

I had fun making this brain out of plasticine. It was used to illustrate a talk about learning and brain plasticity that a dear colleague and I gave at NAEA this year (minus the poem and plus identification of the areas of the brain involved in learning and memory).

The plasticine brain was passed around and audience members were encouraged to change it by leaving their mark on it. My actual brain left the conference very much changed and full of new ideas!