Long live Knut

Knut, the polar bear cub born in the Berlin Zoo will not be put down. We owe to Knut some of the cutest images on the web this year. He was rejected by his mother after being born and some animal-rights activists said that he should be put to sleep because that is what Nature intended (this has happened before, that baby animals are killed when rejected by their parents). The whole article here.

By the way, to me, animal-right extremists are like any other extremists. No difference to Bin Laden, in my view.

Retrospectiva Pictórica 2

Espacio: Park Road
Tiempo: Octubre 2005


Todos los Otoños de mi vida en Londres fueron decorados por las hojas incrustadas en la textura de la calle. Siempre me gustó ver como las ojas se van encarnando de a poco para dejar de ser hojas y volverse calle. Y desaparecer.

Rotterdam

I am moving to Rotterdam some time in July/August. I am starting to consider appartments and neighbourhoods. I was just looking at some pictures and I am already getting excited!

Europe from Memory

Some time ago, I saw a series of posts about drawing maps from memory. Kottke pointed to this one. I always liked maps, and wondered how well could I draw a map. That night at home, almost at midnight, I resolved to draw the map of Europe from memory. I am not from Europe, though I have been living in London for the last 4 years. This is what I drew. Click on it to see it enlarged.

As it says in the caption, it took me like 20 minutes to draw it in pencil and then ink it and paint it with fiber pens. My initial sketch had Italy bordering with Germany, but then I realized I was missing Switzerland and Austria. Getting the relative sizes of Spain, France and Germany "right" also took me a while. The Balkans, no idea. Eastern Europe, not much beyond Poland and Czech Republic.

It was a very edifying exercise. I was surprised by how much I could draw. I was also surprised at not being able to place Belgium properly. Overall, I am proud.