New addition

So, two Saturdays ago, Girls Drawin Girls held a party over at the Doll Factory between Echo Park and Silverlake. Halfway through the party, I found Damon out by my car in the parking lot, trying to coax out a mewing kitten. Twenty minutes later, we had convinced the little kitten we were ok, and we had an instant friend.

Stray kitten was also quite a social butterfly, and quickly befriended everyone at the party. We ended up taking him home with us, where Rocket was QUITE displeased with the intrusion. We quarantined the little one, checked lost and found, and made the call that he was just a super friendly stray baby (esp by the way he eats- he is a TOTAL scrapper- we've found him in the garbage twice already).

We took him in to the vet last Monday, got him fixed up and all up to date on his shots and a clean bill of health. The vet estimated him to be around 13 weeks (3-4 months) and he is a total love bug and has a great attitude.

A week later, Rocket has accepted Inky into the house, and they are wrestling and playing like lil' brothers. Anyway, here are a few sketches from the past two weeks of kitten madness!

rocket with some lady sketches

rocket very unhappy with the new little one

rocket relaxing

little one sleeping

Sleepy cat

Meatball cat 12/22

Since I've moved away from home, our family cats have grown to gigantic proportions.  My old cat, Boo Boo, has turned into a giant black meatball of a cat- perfectly circular with two large green eyes.

We eventually decided that she just like a giant one of Miyazaki's susuwatari dustballs from his animated movies (Totoro, Spirited Away)....

Itty Bitty Art show!

Here's my piece for Monkeyhouse's upcoming Itty Bitty Art show. So glad I had time to get it done! (Phew!) I was originally going to do a small series of three pieces based off of children's pets, but ended up doing one piece about one of my own childhood pets.

I did a rough sketch of it a week or so ago- recognize it? ; )

anyway, opening reception is this
Saturday, November 8th, from 5pm-9pm
Monkeyhouse Toys and Art Gallery
1618 1/2 Silverlake Bl., LA 90026

Wishful Thinking

I want to make this into a painting for an upcoming small canvas show. It's based off a pet parakeet I had when I was little (from third grade through ninth) named Wishful.  She was the most awesome parakeet in the world- seriously overflowing with personality and charm!

Her name was Wishful, because for 4 months straight I wished every single night for a parakeet on the brightest star in the night time sky.  So, when I finally got her, she was a wish come true for me.  The irony of it was that the small blue bird we bought home wasn't the blue/green bird I had picked out in the store- in the flurry of nets and birds and stuffing her in a little box, we didn't really realize it until we had gotten home.  Lucky for me, I got the best bird in the world!

I miss you little one!

Illustration Friday "Memory"

There was a page in an old children's book I once had that had a drawing of all these family pets that had passed away that fascinated me. This is sort of my version of that drawing, but with some of my own pets. They gave me and my family so many great memories,  I figured this would be a good one to share for this week's Illustration friday : )

*Chloe (left) and Koko (right), half siblings (belgian sheepdog and belgian malinois- same mother, but from different litters.. their mom was a police dog)
*Wishful the parakeet (I wished for a parakeet for like, two months straight before I got her, hence the name)
*Hermione (aka Ratty) the dumbo Rat who used to get her own muffin special made for her (no chocolate chips!)
*The three brother cats Lucky, Baby and Max (left to right), who we found in the attic of our garage when they were a day old.  Max seriously had a smiley face pattern on his belly!