Happy New Year

I took these pictures on New Year's Day. And I'm a couple of days late in posting them but this is the first chance that I've had to get them up here.

We were plowing the snow out of the driveway and I happened to sort of start packing snow with my hands and realised that it was the perfect conditions to make a snow man. I wanted one by the house and one by the road. So I actually made 2 of them. The noses are pieces of slider from my boyfriend's skidoo and the eyes and buttons are golfballs covered in electrical tape. The branches are just good old fashioned branches from the forest across the road.

I love that the one by the road is there to greet me when I come home and same with the one here by the house.

Pet Parade Still On Today

There is a pet parade that is still going on today. If you go here http://planetmfiles.com/2009/04/28/pet-parade/ you can watch the parade and even join in if you want to. Sorry but I don't know how to do the fancy links so I just paste in the location. I guess that's something I need to learn how to do.

Anyways... They want you to post and link pictures of your pets or a story about them.

So I did this quick sketch of one of my cat's (Mako) this morning. And I discovered that a napping cat will change positions 6-10 times in the space of 15 to 20 minutes, which is the length of time I was working on this sketch. I guess they are always on alert for sounds and things and he actually got up before I had a chance to really finish the sketch.
Early Morning Naptime (5x9, pencil sketch)

The nap in the drawing was taking place at 7AM. I only got up at 6. Not sure when he got up but I know he was awake at 5AM because he tried to get me to get up and feed him his breakfast then.

Cats are amazing creatures and mine are very sweet and friendly cats who really like to spend time with us. And are usually hanging pretty close even if they are napping. The exception to the sleep around people rule is that if we stay up too late then Mako will just go to bed alone and pass out for the night until he hears the food bag rattling and then he'll get up to eat and go back to bed.

This is Mako sleeping on his favourite fake leather reclining swivel chair. He is fake sleeping right now though and trying to ignore that I am taking his picture.

This is Bandit in one of his two favourite napping spots. The back of the couch. He is also fake sleeping and pretending to ignore me while I take the picture of him.

Hope you like my contribution to the Pet Parade and hope you decide to join in.

The Old Soldier

The Old Soldier (7x9, pencil sketch)

This is the finished sketch for Inpsire Me Thursdays "green" topic.

It is a drawing of a snapping turtle that is from a photo I took of a very large snapping turtle (14-15 inch carapace) on the road near my home about a year ago. He was crossing the road and was actually pretty quick about it considering what you hear about how fast turtles usually move. A turtle this size is quite old and has probably been through a lot - a real warrior.

The turtles are actually protected around here and there are signs for turtle crossings - you are supposed to help them and not run them down - so in a way this is "green" because helping creatures is a green concept. It is also green because there is a slimy green moss and algae on his carapace that made him look like an old rock from the top.

I'm happy with how this drawing turned out. In real life both sides of the drawing are the same saturation. It is done across the spine of my sketchbook so the light is hitting each side a little differently causing the turtle's right leg to look lighter.

He looked quite alot like a walking rock and I can see how people step on them in shallow water and end up losing a toe from that snapping beak. This guy was the perfect old gentleman though, he never even hissed at me - just laid there and let me take his picture from about 3 feet away from him. I was very fortunate indeed.

Here is the photo I took of him....