In contrast to May, June’s daily art theme was a delight. I put the word out to friends on Facebook that I needed reference photos of pets and received a good variety. Most were cats – no surprise to me – so I aimed for half the subjects to be feline and the rest to be a variety of other kinds of pets.

I chose conte pastel as the medium. Though I’ve been avoiding mediums that create dust because I have asthma, conte is really well compacted so possibly the least dusty. I intended to restrict myself to black and white, but pretty soon I was adding a little brown and grey, and then yellow, green and pink for eyes and ears, and the frog really needed to be green…

The brown card was an ideal ground, providing the perfect mid-tone and just the right amount of tooth. Each drawing came out better than I expected, making me question whether the results of using conte are worth the down sides. I could always wear a mask. It’s not like I don’t have a heap of cloth masks now.

I was sad when the month ended, but consoled by eagerness for the next theme: accessories.