Brilliant Corners

Another watercolor and ink piece by Wil Freeborn. I love his sparse use of watercolors in his sketches. He's not trying to cover everything, but instead picks a few things here and there to highlight. I love the effect.

A while back, Wil offered to send some of his Moo cards to anyone who emailed him. I occasionally come across the cards he sent and keep telling myself to make some for myself.

This "strange map" of the courses of the Mississippi river was the impetus for redesigning my weblog (for the 50th time). I wanted to start posting illustrations, art, photos, or whatever I come across that inspires me in some way. I can't recall if this map appears in any of Edward Tufte's books, but it certainly belongs in one if it's not.

Here is a little more information about the map, from the site I linked to:

When looking at this map and seeing the jumble of ancient riverbeds - imagine all those shifts sped up: the Mississippi is like a shifting snake, twisting to find its easiest way down to the Gulf. These shifts occur every thousand years or so, especially in the lower parts of the river, through a process known as delta switching, or avulsion: when the river flow is slow, the sedimentation clogs the river channel and it eventually finds another channel. This process is by no means ‘historic’ (i.e. ‘over’) – from the 1950s onwards, the US government has worked on the Old River Control Structure, meant to prevent the Mississippi from switching to the Atchafalaya River channel.

It doesn't look like Alexis Venet has been posting to his weblog for very long, but I love the illustrations he's shared so far. Wonderful colors, and they're all fun and whimsical.