
Gifts from last night’s lovely dinner party guests.

Gifts from last night’s lovely dinner party guests.

Now I have Thin Lizzy on the brain.
Guess who just got back today?
Them wild-eyed bees that’d been away …


It’s National Moth Week again, so we sketched moths (and their larvae) on Draw With Me.
Halysidota tessellaris, the banded tussock moth, is found in North America from southern Canada south through Texas and central Florida. Adult moths are attracted to decaying plants with pyrrolizidine alkaloids. They regurgitate on them, then drink the fluids, and thus acquire defensive chemicals that offer protection from predators.
Megalopyge crispata, the black-waved flannel moth, is found along the east coast of the United States, and as far inland as Oklahoma. The caterpillars produce a venom, delivered through hollow hairs that penetrate the skin, that can cause pain, headache, inflamed lymph glands and dermatitis. They may look cute and furry, but don’t go petting them!

I took Bodie for her first ever professional grooming today. It seems the wash went OK, but when it came to the drying, she “just wasn’t having it.” They called me to come and get her right away; I could hear her barking up a storm in the background. So she didn’t get her brush and trim, but they didn’t charge me anything. I brought home a damp doggie, who is sulking because I won’t let her run around outside and roll in the dirt.
So much for that idea!

This was meant to be a five-minute drawing exercise, but I hadn’t even started on the rocks when the timer ran out. Reference photo by Stephen Travers.
Busy day, so only time for a tiny sketch. Literally tiny — it’s less than 2″ high, done with a .005 micron pen and painted with a size 0 brush. Inspired by the colours in a Saul Steinberg sketch of an ashtray made for him by his friend Alexander Calder. Thanks to Esté MacLeod for the prompt.
In other achievements, I replaced the ratty mesh on the screen door in our dining room, and now I feel like a DIY superhero.

After May Grey, June Gloom, and a few weeks of No-Sky July, it’s amazing how the colours sing when the sun comes out.

Suzanne and I had our first beach swim of the year, then we parked ourselves behind this colour-loving gent to sketch.