I haven’t done an Illustration Friday drawing in quite a long time, so I gave it a try again today. The word is “late,” and of course, time came to mind.

Specifically, I thought of two lines from the poem To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell, which I first read in high school and has stuck with me since. It is more about the fleeting nature of time than being late, but I think it’s an amazingly poignant couplet of poetry, and a great poem:

“But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near”

And here’s my drawing for Illustration Friday:

“Late,” 5 x 7 inches, pen and ink

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “punchline.” The first thing that came to mind for me was actual punching, as opposed to the more idiomatic definition of the expression.

I get bored easily with exercising, so at different times in my life, I have taken kickboxing and boxing classes. I’ve never actually “boxed,” other than sparring lightly in class, but it is quite an adrenaline rush just to do the moves, and a great workout!

My favorite boxing memory is from the boxing class I took while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy. We would warm up by running the perimeter of the small room doing different movements. My favorite was kind of a “grass blowing in the wind” type movement where we put our hands above our heads and swayed side to side while running. So there I was, one of the few girls in the class, with a bunch of smelly Italian men, swaying around the room. It still makes me laugh every time I think about it.

I pulled out some of my old boxing gear for my interpretation of “punchline” below.

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “baby,” so I thought I’d make some more geometric blooms. They are fun to make, especially in varying sizes.

By the way, how do you like my new banner? It’s hot of the Adobe Illustrator press!

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “worry.” I almost had to laugh when I saw this word because I think I could be a professional worrier. In fact, I think worrying compulsively is hereditary because the only person I know who worries more than me, is my mom.

Anyway, I could not think of any better way to represent the abstractness of worries than with the abstract word itself. Worrying has much in common with fear– they are both very abstract, and they are survivors– they creep in EVERYWHERE.

As long as they are kept in the abstract, for example, worrying that you’re not good enough, worrying that you are a failure, worrying that you don’t have enough money, they win. If you start thinking very concretely, as in, this is how much money I need to make, this is what I need to do to pass the test, this is what I want to do with my life, often times worries go away. But if you let them win, this is your brain on worries:

The word for Illustration Friday this week is “wide.” The image that popped into my head was one of big wide open space, so here it is:

The word for Illustration Friday this week is seed.
Here’s my drawing called “Heartseed.”

Illustration Friday’s word for this week is “wrinkles.” My Psychology professor in college once commented that we will spend our entire lives ironing out the wrinkles in our personalities. I think this is very true– sometimes my heart and mind feel full of wrinkles. Some days I’m better at ironing than others.

This week’s Illustration Friday word is “primitive.” When I think about that word, I think of the root of the word “primo” or “first” in Italian. Seeds seem like a good first place to start.

When I first saw the topic on this week’s Illustration Friday, I thought of drawing some grand homage to a poet or an artist, but then I got back to basics. This is my homage to the cheeseburger. I love to eat, and I had a wonderful, messy burger last night at Burgers and Brew, a newish restaurant in my town, Davis, CA. They do a fine job there. It’s a little upscale, but when it comes down to it, it is all about making a good burger.

Here is my Illustration Friday submission for this week. The word is choose, and while I realized that just about any piece of art would do for this one since making art is just a series of creative choices, I went more the “two roads diverged”route.