What do daffodils do?

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is rescue. And these are not-quite-open daffodils. And how am I going to make this fit the theme?

Oh, there's a fit.

It could have been as easy as saying that those of us in northern climates finally feel rescued from winter when the spring flowers start appearing, but the fact is that they haven't actually appeared here yet.

The reason these flowers are in the house at the moment is that it's Daffodil Days for the Canadian Cancer Society. I see that it's also going on in the US, but apparently it started here first. For those unfamiliar with the whole thing (and who haven't followed the link above), the CCS uses the daffodil as a symbol of hope and sells them as a kick-off to its spring fundraiser.

I'm lucky enough to have not been too affected by cancer personally, but that doesn't mean I couldn't be. Those daffodils could represent a pretty important form of rescue in that case.

By the way, the post title comes from the jingle from a CCS ad for Daffodil Days. It... um... has an annoying way of sticking in your head so I'm not going to look for a link. I'm sure it's googleable if you're curious, though.

Very Dead Grape Leaves in pen and ink

I'll try to remember to take this into work and scan it, but the picture gives the basic idea. Erm, such as it is.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is expired. While I might have had thoughts about drawing dead parrots (they just had to use that quote in the e-mail and spoil my fun, didn't they?), any excuse to draw dead leaves is welcome.

I have what's probably a weird fascination with the leaves on my father's grape vine. I take far too many photos of them, both alive and dead, and I've done plenty of doodles of them... only one of which I think I've ever posted here (before this, I mean), for some reason. Maybe I should look them up and see how horrible they are. Anyway, since the grape leaves are thin but heavily veined, they go through some interesting contortions as they wither up in the fall. It's fun to follow the lines. For me, anyway.

And if anyone out there is a grape connoisseur (boy, is that a strange word when you actually sit down and try to spell it) and is wondering what kind of grapes my father is growing, all I can say is that it's some kind that will grow in Alberta. That has to narrow it down quite a lot, because there's not much in the line of grapes that can make it through our lovely winters as far as I know.

Oh, and the odd placement on the page? I'd planned to add some of the background initially, but when I was done with the leaves I kind of liked it this way.

Quick scribble in pen and ink

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is subterranean. I... um... yeah.

Actually, I did have something a bit more serious, but I decided that I didn't like it. I might rework it and post it later. We'll see.

Ladybird in Hand in carbon pencil

With a little bit of watercolour pencil thrown in just for fun.

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is brave. So what's brave about holding a ladybird beetle? Not much, unless you grew up a complete insectophobe. Which I did.

Having this happen to me as a kid would have kept me indoors for at least a week.

I work as a naturalist now and it isn't unusual for me to wind up with insects crawling on me in the course of a school program, but there's still a little voice inside my head that thinks I'm absolutely insane to let it happen. The fact that I can, and that the children I'm teaching probably don't know that I used to be scared of insects? Well, doesn't that count as brave?

Brave comes in all sizes, I figure.

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Edited to add:

After I posted this, it occurred to me that I could have submitted pretty much anything I've ever submitted for Illustration Friday for this word. I'm just a doodler, and for a long time I was a pretty closeted doodler. It's a bit of an act of bravery every single time one of these doodles makes it to the blog...