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Drawing of animals with spots and stripes

Design based on drawing of animals with spots and stripes

This design consists of a drawing of animals from Africa. It was done with a rotring pen. I chose a selection of animals with spots, stripes and dappled markings. There are many more animalswith lovely markings on all the continents.

Different markings are a characteristic of camouflage in some wild animals. In the domesticated Nguni cattle the markings of different kinds are highly prized.

I love the pattern on animals, from the wild dog to the swarming locust. I think I feel the same as a poet we learned of in school, Gerard Manley Hopkins, a Jesuit priest who lived and died in the nineteenth century. The beauty of animal markings reminds me of his poem:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things -

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow and plough

And all trades, their gear, tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.

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