An illustration for Chinese Valentine’s Day for the cover of the Shanghai Star.

The cover is based on Qixi Festival, which happens on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar.

The festival celebrates the myth of the weaver girl and the oxherder, in which the deity wife is reunited with her mortal husband for one day when magpies form a bridge across the Milky Way.

I used a more modern style (this is a myth that has been painted since antiquity) and tied the folktale to our editorial package, which was about the best places to propose in Shanghai.