Kitty Loco Designs Artsy Fartsy Pursuits

This traditional Peruvian hat would boil my little head under the hot Costa Rican sun. However, when I return to Toronto in April I might need it…especially in my parents cold cold house! Brrrrrr!

It has been a long while since I have posted for Illustration Friday. I’ve been busy with work and such, but I wanted to get back in the IF routine.

This piece, titled Scuba-Man Meets the Sad Octopus is my first painting completed in a long, long, loooooong while, so I am giving myself a big ole pat on the back Created using watercolor and archival ink on paper.

In other unrelated news, today is my birthday. So happy birthday to myself… and thanks to all my fancy friends and family who sent me their good wishes. You’ze all made my day

When I was a kid I loved to play with dolls. Stuffed or Barbie dolls, it didn’t matter. My toys helped me to go into that creative happy place in my head where I was at peace. Sadly as an adult I don’t go to that place as much. So this post is dedicated to my dolls, which I loved (the heart symbol is a sign of love for all you Illustration Friday folk) so much in my childhood. And here’s a wish to all, that we can find our way to our creative happy place even once in a while Dolls rock!

I can only imagine the fresh greens of spring emerging from the darkness of winter. I am missing Toronto a lot and this would be the start of my favorite time of year there. Costa Rica only has the rainy and dry seasons, and there is always green and warmth so there is nothing in that regard to miss or look forward to. So oh how sweet, I have bought myself a ticket home for one month this coming May 23rd.

I am very excited to see all my family and friends. I feel like the city must have changed so much in the year and a half that I have been living here in Costa Rica, for when I left there were huge buildings being erected or renovated and an entire area being transformed.

It was during a routine forward bend that Tina felt the snap in her back and was rushed to the emergency chiropractic and plastic surgery clinic. Thankfully a good back crack and emergency breast enhancement (to a double D cup) solved the problem. Tina would never again be able to hurt her back by folding too far in half.

This piece for Illustration Friday is titled, “Total Woman” because this sexy mamacita is all woman! Ok, maybe she’s a bit less woman and more of a scanned pencil crayon drawing that was altered and coloured in Photoshop.

I have a live to tell story now… muy asustado… very scary. Pedro and I picked up my parents from the airport in San Jose last Tuesday in a rental car. I was driving. This was my parents first visit to Costa Rica and their first time meeting my husband and his family…oooh scary!

The first part of the drive is up and around and down and around some very large mountains. I don’t really like driving them (being more acquainted with driving the flat landscape of my hometown, Toronto, Canada) but I just concentrate on the road ahead and try not to look to the steep drops on the side and all is fine for me. It’s always much nicer being in the inner lane next to the mountain.

An hour into our drive home I was driving down the mountain when I noticed that a push on the breaks seemed to speed up the car before slowing it and I mentioned casually that the breaks seemed a bit off. I was driving automatic car and my dad told me to put it into 2nd gear, which I did. We just came down around a curve and there was a car up ahead of me going around the next curve. The car was moving quite slow but pressing on the breaks was not stopping the car all of a sudden. I floored the breaks once before again casually commenting out loud, “I think the breaks are not working”.

The rest happened very fast. I looked to the left lane where the street was clear but there was a curving mountain and then to the right, where there was a ditch. I chose the ditch, I thought, I had better stop this car somehow, and I thought as the car was movings slowly the ditch would stop us. So I turned into the ditch and Pedro screamed out, “what are you doing? Don’t do this” and the car bumped down the ditch, flew out and crashed into a metal fence where we came to stop…phew! I had a seatbelt welt and a backache and migraine developed soon after. My dad hurt his back and my step-mom and Pedro, sitting in the back, had a few bruises. But thankfully we were alive and unharmed. Had I continued down the road we would have gone off a cliff. I don’t think I’ll drive those roads again, but rather trust the local bus.

Thankfully the rest of the visit with the parents was relaxing and uneventful.

When I was a kid I loved a good ole game of hide ‘n seek with the neighbourhood kids. It was always fun hiding out with a friend and giggling and shushing one another with nervous delight. Ahh the good old days…