Jenny Parks is a scientific illustrator that also happens to be a shameless nerd, with a penchant for drawing animals, dinosaurs, imaginary creatures… and occasionally, people as cats. Somehow, she found herself with a bit of internet fame with the illustration ‘Doctor Mew’, and has been baffled ever since. With a BFA in illustration from the California College of the Arts, and a graduate degree in Science Illustration from UC Santa Cruz, she now resides in San Francisco as a freelance illustrator, fulfilling her destiny to make a living drawing cute, fuzzy things.

This picture taken on February 23, 2014 shows participants wearing dresses running half-naked in the annual 3.5 km Undie Run held in the Olympic Forest Park smog-covered Beijing. Some 200 participants took part in this event, many of them with gas masks, as dangerous smog blighted swathes of northern China in recent days. (Photo by AFP Photo/STR)

Competitors take part in the Christmas Really Wild Mud Run on a 4.6 miles course across undulating farm land at Celtic Camping, St David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales, December 12, 2015. (Photo by Rebecca Naden/Reuters)

Participants take part in the Color Run near the Eiffel Tower in Paris April 19, 2015. The Color Run is a five-kilometre race, held in cities across the U.S. and also worldwide, with the aim of promoting healthy living and to benefit a charity that organizers choose in each of the cities that the run visits. Participants are doused from head to toe in different colors at each kilometre. (Photo by Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

Participants climb a 10km muddy obstacle course during the “Run Mud” race, on March 29, 2019 in the Israeli mediterranean coastal city of Tel Aviv. Over 6,000 participants took part in the obstacle race, with up to 18 artificial obstacles on three tracks (10 km, five km or two km). (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP Photo)

In a simpler time all a child or an adult needed to enjoy the outdoors was a ball and a stick. Or maybe an old tire tied to a high branch to fashion a swing. And the only instruction given to children was to “be home before dark”. Now there are iPads and computers and television screens and shrinking safe public spaces. But despite the distractions and limitations of space, these images show the charm of kicking a ball or skipping rope endures. Sometimes with modifications as a nod to changing times. Here: in this Saturday, June 20, 2015 photo, a boy runs while playing with a motorcycle wheel in Samugari, Ayacucho, Peru. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)