Four ringtail possums hang from a branch. A fifth possum, holding a tin of gold paint and a brush, paints all tails gold, forming five golden rings.

Straying from the usual drawings, I thought I’d take advantage of it now being July and do a few festive drawings as a ‘Christmas in July’ theme. These are a continuation of The Twelve Days of Christmas which is still incomplete.

This time, I decided to focus on The Fifth Day of Christmas. I’d been putting this one off (when I was previously drawing them) because I had drawer’s block (if that’s a thing) and couldn’t think of anything really unique to draw for it. Most of the Google search related images show rings in the form of jewellery that are gold, which is a bit literal.

Wanting to incorporate some animals into to it, I considered doing a blue ringed octopus version with gold rings instead of blue, but I had already drawn a blue ringed octopus for the bowerbird cartoon. Thinking of all animals ‘ringed’, I happily thought upon ringtail possums. They fit the part well. I could draw them hanging from a tree branch and have their tails painted gold (for no apparent reason apart from fulfilling the requirement of having five gold rings. Rather than just colouring their tails gold, I chose to have one of the possums sitting on top of the branch painting four dangling possums’ tails below. Of course it would have to paint its own tail or there would only be four gold rings.

Hopefully I’ve done them justice and that they don’t look too rat-like. I threw in the Santa hat as well, mainly to reinforce the Christmas aspect but also because a ringtail possum would look cute(r) wearing a Santa hat.

I also opted for whiskers of white. From what I’ve seen, ringtail possum whiskers are usually black or at least dark, but I find white whiskers are more subtle in a drawing. Lots of black lines for whiskers can look a bit messy and distracting especially when none of the other outlines are black.

Anyway, this is the finished drawing. I hope it assists anyone who happens to be celebrating Christmas in July.