Conspiracy theory

I've long held the belief that children have a telepathic ability to maximise the disruption caused to their parent due to attention demands, illness, accidents etc. I hadn't realised this telepathic ability stretched to the household pets as well. Today I had planned the morning for drawing - nothing else on the agenda.

A touch of back story - last Tuesday we bought 8 fish - 2 goldfish to go with our existing lonely goldfish- Pizza and 6 tetras for the tropical tank. One of the goldfish had an ulcer which, after phoning the aquatics department, we decided to treat and if it didn't survive they would replace it. Anyway, it died yesterday so I went back to get a replacement - we thought we had a healthy one but I noticed it had a small white spot when I finally released it into the tank, yesterday. When I checked the tank this morning Pizza was covered in tiny white spots.

So, after dispatching the children at various bus stops and educational establishments, I fished the fish out of the tank and into a container and drove carefully to the garden centre for some advice. Apparently it's white spot and I needed to do 2 water changed and wait 3 hours between before giving them the treatment. That took up nearly half the morning.

This afternoon, Dominic had an appointment in Aylesbury - a good 3 hours when taking into account travelling. This evening, Andrew came back from walking Arrow - our daft Springer spaniel- and found he'd cut his paw badly, no idea on what but it was bleeding and wouldn't stop. So after wrapping it up he was taken to the vets and has had to stop in overnight. Which means I have to go and collect him tomorrow. I also have meetings about both sons tomorrow morning plus Ewan's swimming lesson. I will get some drawing done tomorrow night, I've signed up for a life drawing class - 5 sessions. I'm really looking forward to it...

Despite all that disruption, I have managed to get some drawing in today. I've started a picture of Bob Marley - approximately A2. It's going fairly well, I'm trying something new, I thought I'd try mixing a pencil portrait with the abstract technique I've been using, let's hope it works! It looks very odd at the moment as I'm not drawing the whole face to ensure the ink adheres well to the paper.

I've also had a telephone enquiry about "live caricaturing" at a party. I've said I'd be interested but I need to get practicing and hone my skills. So this evening I've spent some time on quick pictures, straight to ink. BTW , No, I'm not posting them, not happy with them. Just a little bit rusty, Maybe tomorrow...