Autumnal accessories

Every Autumn or Fall as some of you prefer to call it (presumably because you slip over on the icy pavements a lot...), there's an ever present accessory we are often seen sporting. Yes, you probably guessed from the photo above - it's a spider web - with or without accompanying arachnid.

Spiders just love to dress us up during these chillier months. They thoughtfully spin their webs directly where we will walk through them - preferably at face height right outside our front doors or across footpaths. This way it's easy for them to wrap our features in a fine gauze with their egg legged selves perching thoughtfully somewhere in our hair.

There's a ritual I've also observed as we get dressed up in this delicate gossamer. It requires much arm flapping, face swiping and head itching - plus often a whole body shiver. Rarely does putting on clothing and dance go so entirely hand in hand!

It's hairy and it's got lots of legs...

Don't you just hate that moment when your eye tells your brain that something's not quite right about the bath... that there's something standing out starkly against the white enamel that just shouldn't be there... The hairs on the back of your neck begin to stand on end, your body tenses and you prepare for fight or flight... or maybe in my case, grabbing the nearest beaker and sheet of card.

What is it with the giant house spider and the bath tub? Are they particularly clean creatures? Do they like the smell of my bubble bath and fancy a hot soak? Or... much more sinisterly... do they desire a bite on my ankle, then a quick run up my leg heading for the face? EEK! I'm scaring myself!

Despite my fear of those many legs running across my flesh, I always take the second bravest option to deal with the intruder. The first is naturally just to ignore it and celebrate the fact that it eats flies (and was used by my ancestors as a cure for Malaria and Leprosy... apparently... I read it in a book - you had to eat them!). My preferred method is to approach with trembling hand and nausea and place a cup (or bowl, depending on size of creature) over its many legs, poison-dripping fangs and hairy body; then I slice a sheet of card underneath and carry into the garden hoping a passing bird may take a fancy... This release back into the wild is always done at arms length with a bolt back through the door and deadlocks applied. Heart beating wildly I'll return, shaking and covered in a sheen of fear.

Spiders and I just don't mix. What possessed me to want to draw one is quite beyond me. I had intended to draw a pretty little birdie and was flicking through a nature book for inspiration; but then I got sidetracked by the Illustration Friday theme of 'scary' - influced by all these Halloween-themed programmes on TV -  so I drifted onto ideas of zombie crows until, these hairy legs just 'spoke' to me (in a sinister spider-like fashion naturally).

I kind of like the way it is unfinished and cropped close; makes you wonder what's going on and what move it's going to make next... It's looking right at you don't you know?

Posting too for Sunday Sketches. I'm sorry if I make you shiver and shudder!