Happy December!

Hope you're all well and enjoying December so far!
Over on Instagram, I've been posting an illustration a day and hope to continue to do so for all of the days leading up to Christmas. I noticed a wonderful post by Penny Neville Lee who started the #illo_advent and was inspired. I'm not sure if I'll make all of the days, but so far, I've been enjoying it and have successfully posted for four days in a row. :)

I wanted to give myself a prompt that would tie each piece together and so I came up with trying to do 25 of the USA's fifty states, starting with Alabama. I searched online for the states' symbols and as I always gravitate to animals, was happy to find Alabama's State mammal, the black bear! I then decided to add something that he could "do" - and so I thought about things that I would hope that we all could wish for or try to do this holiday season, or the year ahead..and the word CULTIVATE came up. Perfect..I'll try to cultivate things for each post.

So here are the first four and I hope that you all have happy, healthy days ahead. If you're inclined, please do join along..and you can post the hashtag #illo_advent along with it wherever you post (Facebook, Twitter, IG).

If you're on Twitter or IG, I'm @shirleysillos I look forward to seeing you out there sharing your wonderful work!

Shirley

Alabama's Black Bear, blackberries and Northern Flicker

Alaska's Moose & King Salmon

Arizona's Ringtail and Cactus Wren

Arkansas' White-tailed Deer