Exploring Animal Illustration A friend of mine living in the village has asked me to illustrate a monthly article he writes for a local parish magazine. I think the plan might be to produce a calendar. Animals and birds don’t normally figure in my normal subject matter, but I thought, ‘why not’. So I have been trying out a few sketches of animals and birds, just to see what comes about. The articles are beautifully written. Here is an example: ‘The faintest smear of dawn to the East took an age to widen, but slowly there was a different intensity to the hour. A song thrush somewhere out towards Ashbeer lit a distant flare of song, like a blacksmith in the darkness at his forge. In this pre-twilight there was a wilderness to those repeated notes that could have come form the Australian outback or the Black Forest – this is what the vast darkness does...’ I think it might be an image of a bird or insect, or it might be simply a picture that reflects the mood contained within the writing. We talked about some of the creatures that might be illustrated, including the hares that are having a good year this year, and can be often seen in the fields around the village. I shall see where our collaboration takes us, and what sort of artwork may emerge.