Fox
Today’s word is…
Clever.
And for clever, I did, in fact, choose Fox.
Now I know what you’re thinking - “what a cliche! Is that the only word you could think of??” And you’re right. It is - how many times have YOU heard the phrase “clever like a fox?” Yeah, me too.
With almost all of these word-animals, it was the word that came to me first and then the animal spirit followed. But with this one, I knew I wanted to draw a fox and my brain could not break away from that old saying. It’s like when we got our second cat and tried to change his name - but had already spent a couple weeks looking at his picture on the ASPCA website and calling him Storm. There was, quite literally, no way break away at that point - so Storm he stayed.
Anyhow, I may have abandoned the fox design completely (because that cliche just wasn’t sitting well with me) but I had a little ‘sit and think’ moment on the floor of the studio, trying to mull over how foxes could be clever, and came to something new.
The first thing I thought of, of course, was a fox breaking into a chicken coop. And I suppose that does take a certain amount of ingenuity, to outsmart the humans and go a’feasting. But then I began to hone in on my own experiences with foxes.
I pretty much never see them at first. My eyes see only the surroundings - grasses, trees, or urban odds and ends. And then, suddenly - there! I’m always astonished because I feel like that bright, russet coat should be a standout color in any environment - but one moment I’m looking at a bush and the next? A living, breathing animal.
Fox was one of the last drawings that I finished, largely because it took me so long to find a connection to ‘clever’ that felt right. But by the time I drew him out, I was playing more with my designs, reveling in the way certain lines could mirror a shoulder or a haunch and hide the familiar shapes of the letters our eyes pass over uncountable times every day (as they are doing right now, in fact, as you read this!).
This makes these little word/animals rather clever by design, if I do say so myself! The words are hard to see until - wham! Pow! You see them! Hiding in plain sight, they go from nothing special to something amazing the moment your mind makes the connection.
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Original watercolor painting (6x8) available in December - date and time TBD