Living in a dense, urban environment brings us closer to other people than we sometimes want to be. But there are those instances when a serendipitous connection was right there, within arms reach, just missed because we didn't look up. Brooklyn-Australian artist, Sophie Blackall, is translating these haiku-like scenes into lovely prints...

We love the everyday romanticism embodied in these simple prose — quiet longings typed out and cast off into the abyss of the internet like a digital message in a bottle. And we seriously dig the concept of adapting them into illustration. These prints are a lovely representation of modern-day, albeit digital, romance.

From the artist: "Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down."

Prints are available on Sophie's Etsy site and more paintings can be viewed on her Missed Connections blog.