Perfectly Frank

TRYING TO think of a birthday gift that combined my brother’s creative side in the kitchen with a reference to his accident-prone Springer Spaniel Frank (who survived snowdrifts and thin ice in France last week), I spotted these two bottles in the supermarket; Marston’s Pedigree Classic English Pale Ale and Frank’s Original Red Hot Cayenne Pepper Sauce.

All they needed to personalise them was a little logo of the Original Pedigree Welsh Springer Spaniel Frank himself. Perfect!

Frank

“HAVE YOU noticed that whenever Frank’s around, we disappear?” says my brother Bill, as I focus on drawing Frank, the springer spaniel, who he’s holding on his lap.

Bill has already bowed to the inevitable and replaced his own photo with Frank’s on his Facebook page.

“At first I had a picture of Frank and me there but as all the comments were about him, I realised that people weren’t really bothered about me.”

I didn’t have time to draw Frank when I first met him before Christmas but I couldn’t resist taking quick photograph – cropping out my brother, of course!

At that time Frank has the rounded proportions of a younger puppy but three or four weeks later he’s grown considerably and changed in his proportions. He’s still got big feet – he is a spaniel after all – but his body has lengthened so that his head is no longer in the proportion to his body. At that time his proportions were closer to those of a cut cartoon dog character.

By the way, as my little before and after sketch suggests, Frank can do a quick change act; from one side, he’s liver and white, like a typical springer, from the other he’s plain white.