Absent squirrel

After early morning walkies, Remy and I sit out on the back deck.  I drink my coffee, listen to the beautiful tweeting and twittering of the birds and Remy sniffs and sniffs the air.  His nose definitely works differently from mine because if I were to sniff for as long and as deeply as he does I would pass out :-)

Of late, we are missing out gray squirrel friend, Bud.  He would run along the top rail of the fence and use it as safe passage from one tree to another.  He would perch on a branch and eat pine cone seeds and absolutely litter the grass with the inedible bits.  Bud's flicking tail particularly fascinated Remy.

I found a photograph of a squirrel in a beautifully expressive pose and I thought about Bud.  I've been working in graphite and drew this:

My focus was on tonal range.

I discovered later that the subject of the photo is a popular squirrel named Punky who lives (as of 2012) in a Durham county park in the UK.

I hope we see Bud again.

Source photo used with permission - North News and Pictures Ltd.  If you want to see the original color photo of Punky, here's the link:  Punky