Among my various ambitions for this year, one is to get better with my pens and paints. I love drawing but I don’t practise it enough, so I don’t improve as much as I’d like.

I thought animals might be a good place to start, and so I took my camera to the taxidermy cabinets at the Whitby Museum in search of subjects.

Trouble was, on closer inspection not all of the animals on display represented the pinnacle of the taxidermist’s art – and it was going to be slightly tricky to make realistic sketches of stuffed animals that weren’t absolutely convincing to start off with.

Instead, I decided to work off a sort of Night at the Museum conceit – the idea that after the curators locked up at night, the animals came to life and began to run amok, monkeying about with the exhibits (there are no monkeys, sadly).

Here are the results so far. I have half a mind to scribble up a few more and make a little project out of it…