North Carolina has recently been devastated by Hurricane Helene. I had started this project about a week before it hit. Good thoughts and wishes go to the people that were affected and hope they find peace soon.  The rare red wolf lives in the coastal area of the state but I chose to draw this one in the Western mountain area as a Cherokee maiden. From sketch~ To finished painting~ To video~

 The Fox's Wedding. Akira Kurosawa, Dreams .  1990. https://youtu.be/KPO0WaPFKPk In Japan, when the sun shines through rain, the foxes (the shape-shifting tricksters of Japanese folklore) hold their weddings. In Japanese, it is known as 「kitsune no yomeiri・狐の嫁入り」, and when translated means the "fox's bride taking." As pretty as these may be to watch, they are bad luck as the viewer will be entangled by the fox's magic powers and bad things will follow. Thus, when this weather happens, parents often tell their children to play indoors to avoid seeing these weddings (perhaps just a way to keep kids inside so they don't catch a cold).   https://www.plantagbiosciences.org/people/daniel-burke/2019/05/29/drizzling-tuesday-morning/    ああ、何か問題が起きた Uh, oh.  Something went wrong. A fox came here and left this knife.  You are supposed to kill yourself.   Sasuké, the fox demon queller, Usagi Yojimbo.  Stan Sakai.    Sayonara.

(Gulliver Foyle, common sailor, has been living in an airtight tool locker for six months.  He has no memory of how he got there.  He frequently has to pump a patched spacesuit with air and comb the wreckage of the ship to find oxygen, water and food.  The SS Nomad has been destroyed by some act of war.  Gully is at the end of his rope.  He has left the tool locker to search for food, the suit will hold 5 minutes of air and no more. Then he sees a ship).  He gave the approaching spaceship one pleading look, then shot down to the tool locker and pumped his suit full.  He mounted to the control bridge. Through the starboard observation port he saw the spaceship, stern rockets still flaring, evidently making a major alteration in course, for it was bearing down on him very slowly.  On the panel marked FLARES, Foyle pressed the DISTRESS button. There was a three-second pause during which he suffered. Then white radiance blinded him as the distress signal went off in three t

    https://youtu.be/Fp5t2yIiR-U Music by Michael William Balfe, The Bohemian Girl. 1843. Lyrics by,...wait for it...Alfred BUNN!

Once there was a fine warren on the edge of a wood, overlooking the meadows of a farm. It was big, full of rabbits. Then one day the white blindness came and the rabbits fell sick and died. But a few survived, as they always do. The warren became almost empty. One day, the farmer thought, “I could increase those rabbits, make them part of my farm – their meat, their skins. Why should I bother to keep rabbits in hutches? They’ll do very well where they are.” He began to shoot all elil – lendri, homba, stoat, owl. He put out food for the rabbits, but not too near the warren. For his purpose they had to become accustomed to going about in the fields and the wood. And then he snared them – not too many: as many as he wanted and not as many as would frighten them all away or destroy the warren. They grew big and strong and healthy, for he saw to it that they had all of the best, particularly in winter, and nothing to fear – except the running knot in the hedge-gap and the

https://youtu.be/rOVC4NY8Q-A Dreamworks, 2011. Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek hit the voice acting out of the park.