This stupid squirrel

Like pretty much any neighborhood in Ohio, we have lots of squirrels. They, for the most part, keep to themselves, but sometimes they steal food from our garden. It’s fine, really, because we plant a LOT of food and rather than get annoyed by nature nature-ing, I consider it the cost of living on this planet alongside our furry feral friends.

When I moved my desk setup in the home office to face the back window, I knew it would likely inspire me to do some drawings. I assumed I’d see butterflies on flowers, or maybe some unique birds that happened to be migrating through the area. Perhaps I’d come up with some adorable Beatrix Potter-inspired drawing or story about one of them. I didn’t think, however, that I would be inspired by a squirrel.

You can’t see it in that picture, but on that table to the right is an old mason bee house that I picked up at the store one year. It was never really used by bees, likely because I didn’t have it in a good place, but it looked cute sitting there anyway when I had the flower pots filled with blooms. This squirrel has apparently taken to pulling out the round sticks that fill the bee house, and has been chewing to tear them apart to get to… I don’t even know. Maybe there are some insects or larvae chilling inside it?

So here he is… J. Blunt, the weed-smoking squirrel. 🙂

I’ve been posting photos of the process over on my Instagram, and I wasn’t sure at first if I would actually finish this before I became bored with it and moved on to something else. I almost didn’t finish it, to be honest – I had been feeling pretty good about the coloring so far and was terrified that I would ruin it when I tackled the tail. But this morning I was feeling a little extra confident, so I put pencil to paper and gave it a try. Lots of layers on the tail, much like I used on the body, though I went a bit heavier-handed on the darker tones to add more shading and depth to the tail to really show off the fur texture. I may go back on the squirrel body to do a bit of the same – deepen some of the contrast and whatnot.

But, otherwise, I’m pretty pleased with myself on this one.

Now to decide if he’s worth scanning and turning into a fun sticker for my friends like I did with my Bird Bro sketch.