Sometimes you find them in the oddest places

This week's Illustration Friday topic is Island. Here's my little island of life in a concrete city.

Islands are interesting things. My first thought was to draw an isolated green space in a city neighbourhood. That kind of depressed me, however, because I was headed for the idea of Island Effect, and in population ecology that's not a happy thing. An isolated population isn't a healthy one. I'd elaborate, but that sounds a bit too much like what I do at work. You can google it yourself if you're curious.

The more I thought about city islands, though, the more my brain kept going back to the amazing effect that a simple plant can have on our so-called permanent structures. Life is tough and life is tenacious, and man-made things just can't stand up to that in the end.

Cool.

Oh, and a note about the photo: I'm lacking a scanner again today, so my apologies for the flash-effect on the heavier graphite shading.