My book for January is The Call of the Wild by Jack London. This book was first published in 1903 and came into my possession, via a sale at our local health centre, as I wanted to alter it to make a photo album of our two German Shepherd bitches Heidi and Lottie whom we bought as 13 week old pups in October 2011.
I loved this story. It is about a dog called Buck who is stolen from his comfortable southern home and sent north to Canada/Alaska, during the gold rush, to work as a sledge dog. Jack London truly understood the hierarchical structure of a canine pack and how they fitted in to the different environments in which they found themselves. I could relate my dogs' behaviour to the descriptions he gave in his narrative and it has helped me to appreciate the complexity of their interaction with humans. I chose this story for my first read as it is really only a long short story but I found myself page turning to find out what was going to happen next. If you like nature, the outdoors and dogs then this is a story for you.
"Here a yellow stream flows from rotted moose-hide sacks and sinks into the ground, with long grasses growing through it and vegetable mould over running it and hiding its yellow from the sun."
My painting, in acrylics, is of the gold panners' river. I have used gold leaf in between the boulders. Apologies for the large crease in the mixed media paper I used. It wasn't there when I started but appeared later when I had applied the paint. Does anyone know why this should happen?
Thank you for stopping by and do feel free to leave a comment - I appreciate them all.
