Victoria is a dear friend of mine from the KAW (Kirikiriroa Autistic Wildflowers) group. She is also my Research Assistant for Toi Manako Studio and has helped with other projects I'm involved with! So when her mother Laura added me on Facebook and asked if I'd create a poster for Victoria's 30th Birthday, I said yes I would love to!

Laura sent me a list of information about the significant moments in Victoria's life. She was born in California, lived at the base of the Saddleback Mountain Ranges, loved exploring the backyard, befriended the reptiles, played computer games, had a sparkly horse... the list goes on, as it does for someone who has lived on earth for 30 years! Despite the level of detail, I was still very clueless about where to start! So I started with something I'm good at - research.

I have no idea what types of critters live in the backyards of homes at the base of the Saddleback Mountains so I started by going onto one of my favourite apps - iNaturalist. I looked at the base of the Saddleback Mountains near Trabucho Valley and found a long road named  I searched all the reptiles and found one that looked cool. I drew him to the best of my ability.

Then I added the mountains itself. In Te Ao Maaori, the mountains are what brings us life. In a way, they look after us. They are a form of navigation, and form a part of our identity, but they are also where the water cycle plays an important part in bringing life to the areas surrounding them, as the rivers form from the mountains and the rain runs down, providing sustenance for life. Enough about that though, I found a cool spot on the road and traced the outline of the mountains.

TBC