I Can Drawz Zuzu!

"I is still very very very prettyZuzu!"

Finally ... PRALINE!

So remember a looooong time ago I said I wanted to draw Praline, here?

This morning, I did some sketches of our famous Praline, mostly playing around with color -- she's such a fun kitty to draw!
I call this one below "Little Praline in a Big Room." (Unfortunately my scanner wouldn't transfer the sketch very well, so I had to resort to photos and a bit of cropping.)

Anyway, you get the idea:

Click to enlarge

Which was inspired by this post and this picture:

That Praline .... so cute!

Cartoon: Wait

I found another old cartoon yesterday. This one was done around July of 2006, shortly after I adopted Little Girl. A few months after she came to live with us, she got very sick: fever, very bad diarrhea. The vets weren't sure what was wrong with her -- I was going back and forth to the office, including emergency visits when she became so dehydrated, for nearly a week.

I left her overnight on a Friday for observation. That evening I feared she was never coming home again. The next day, however, she was much better. Within a few days, she was back to her old self.

I did the below cartoon about a week later. It's not my favorite: I used a very large piece of paper and one with a heavy grain -- my colored pencils therefore look like crayon, messy and too light. Also, I went a bit over the top with, ah, "mixed media," working in metallic purple ribbons, blue glitter and cut-out pieces. I'm not sure it worked so well. Also, I'm not sure the story is clear, so I'll provide a translation.

Here's the full piece:

One:

Angels, kitty angels in heaven. They look down on Little Girl throughout the week as she is so sick. Recall, angels make Himmies and miss them when they send them to earth. They worry that humans might not take perfect care of their little fluffy masterpieces! The angels are relieved and happy she is coming back to them.

Two:

The angels pause. They see me sitting with her, missing her already, remembering all the things she did, like hugging my FEET and playing with her toys.

Three:

The angel kitties beg the angels not to take her yet. They beg them to "touch her," heal her so she can stay on earth.

See?

Angel Kitty One is crying!

That time I was lucky.
That time, the angels decided they could live without my Little Girl -- for a little while.
About a year and half later, they couldn't wait any more.
They took her back.

(Insert big sad.)

But, you know Little Girl taught me, truly: almost beautiful, that pain.
For if there wasn't so much love, there could never have been that much pain.

Anna: (tiny voice ) Me?

Kim: ?

Anna: Me!

Kim: 'You' what, Anna?

Anna: YOU SEE ME!

Kim: ?

Zuzu: Ahhh! You not so smartz today! She mean WE HERE NOW! NO MORES SADZ!!!

Kim: OH! Yes, yes, I do see you guys! And in fact, "no more sadz" is the current topic of next cartoon!

Zuzu: GOOD!

Cartoon: MOUSE!

The following cartoon portrays a true story involving Little Girl, my first Himalayan and a mouse. Luckily I had my camera handy and was able to take pictures.

One early morning, I noticed her sitting motionless by an old heating grate in the hallway.

"Little Girl, what are you doing?" I asked her and walked over to check it out.

Apparently, she had chased and trapped a mouse in there!

The grate is just a metal box with bars over the top, no longer in use, no wiring attached. As the whole unit lifts easily out of the floor, my husband was able to take the whole box outside (um, yes, while wearing just his boxer shorts) and set the poor mouse free.

This temporarily left a hole in the floor, with only a layer of insulation between the floorboards and an approximately 10-foot drop onto the concrete floor of the basement below. Both of us neglected to consider that Little Girl, likely thinking the insulation layer was solid and still intently focused on her mouse, would go into that hole.

And drop ten feet onto hard concrete.

Poor baby! She was okay, only slightly chipped one of her front teeth. It was pretty scary, tho and I felt so bad for her!

Here's the story, in cartoon form.
Per usual, there are errors here also: note in the "Help falling!" pic, I drew her front feet BACKWARDS! She should have her little pads showing, not her claws. This can be easily fixed with a little cutting and pasting, but somehow, I can't bring myself to change it.

Click to enlarge:
You know, I hadn't realized until today that after Little Girl died, and then Smoosh only four months afterward, I completely stopped drawing these kitty cartoons. Those deaths were so incredibly painful, that I couldn't even deal with deciding what to do with the sweaters I was wearing at the veterinary hospital when they died. It was only this summer that I was able to go through this big box of stuff I'd packed away that reminded me of them and sort it out. I was finally able to wash those sweaters and begin wearing them again.

That 30- second Praline sketch I did a few posts down is the first kitty cartoon I've drawn in over two years.

I still say I am no artist. You'll note the above cartoon is very rough and drawn on printer paper, for crying out loud. Still, I enjoy drawing these -- and had forgotten how much I enjoy making them until this week when I began posting them here.

So I thank all my kitty friends and their humans for introducing me to the Kitty Blogosphere and renewing my interest in drawing again. I spent yesterday doing sketches of flatfaced kitties, trying to figure out how to capture that "grumpy" look but without making them look too grumpy -- not easy. I'm happy to say I may have found the right combination of grump and cute.

Hopefully I'll have some time to start working on some new cartoons soon!

Kitty Cartoon One

I don't consider myself an "artist." I've never been wonderfully good at drawing and have a hard time translating an image I see in my head to paper.

Still, when I rescued Little Girl, my first Himalayan (see right sidebar), she inspired me to suddenly start drawing all kinds of kitty cartoons. I still don't consider myself an "artist," but I did enjoy making these cartoons.

Little Girl seemed to know when I was trying to draw her -- I used to sit on the couch with my knees tucked up under my chin when I drew. During this time, Little Girl would always come an plunk herself down between my feet.

Here is the first cartoon I ever drew in a series of Himalayan cartoons. The whole "Made in Heaven by angels" theme was truly heartfelt, as every time I looked at Little Girl I was in awe in her. I'd wanted a Himalayan forever and here she was -- in all her sweet, friendly, "you can touch me anywhere, even my belly, and I just purr purr purr!" glory!

Two errors on this cartoon: Yes, I spelled "marshmallow"' wrong and also Little Girl was a blue-cream point, not a tortie-point.

She had a little orange on her face:

which I thought meant tortie.

After she died, Anna and Zu's breeder Suzette helped me correctly identify her coloring by looking at photos.

I still say Himalayans are made by angels!
They are just the sweetest, softest, (fattest!) kitties!

(Click on photos if you're having trouble reading to enlarge.)

Enjoy! :)