Digital pet portraits, any animal! All I need is a digital photo and in a few days, your portrait will be emailed to you in a high quality jpeg or tiff, suitable for printing at any photo shop or even to be put on canvas. Can also be used as your computer’s desktop wallpaper or your social media ‘avatar.’
Very reasonable prices! At today’s exchange rate £20/€23/$31. I do accept PayPal.
Examples of my work are throughout this blog, but here are two recent portraits.
I was going through old Facebook photos. My intention was to find some things for me to draw while I’m at the Open Fair. I found one cow and then starting saving pics to put up over here. The kids are just too cute…
Spottie, showing his best side. It must be his best, he always sticks it in our faces for a good, close look. That’s iDJ’s hair 🙂
Lokii, at the breeder’s house. He looked goofy even then. We got to bring him home a few weeks later. So tiny! Ah, look at the little pink kitten-belly, too!
The Kitty Kings, on their thrones – pun intended 🙂 In the morning, this part of the room gets sun so they like to sit on the litterboxes and warm themselves. Yes, my kitchen is lavender.
Awwwwww….
Spot annoying Neko. I have a whole series from this day – Neko was asleep until Spot interrupted and plopped himself down right where her head had been. She couldn’t go back to sleep afterward without squishing Spot – not that he would have minded. She is too gentle a dog to even consider something that would hurt Spottie, though.
VERY rare occurrence. Even after two years, Lokii is scared of the dog. This is the closest he ever got and stayed relaxed about it. Of course, Spot is his guardian.
A last one, to get us in the holiday spirit. Sing it with me: “Cat Butts Roasting on an Open Fire…”
****Edited! I uploaded the wrong drawing!
I have to share my second commissioned painting with you! As I said yesterday, I cackled with laughter when I saw the photo I was to work from:
Look at him! Oh my lord, what a little furball!
I knew he’d be a challenge, and I wasn’t wrong. This is the hardest drawing I’ve done yet. I hope they like it; I’m not 100% happy with it, but I’m also exhausted. Here’s my version of the ‘Jabba the Hutt’ lookalike Perisan kitten, Clyde:
Lastly, I found a photo of what he looks like as an adult:
Clyde has to be the hairiest cat I’ve ever seen, and he’s huge! What an armful.
Okay, are we ready with the drumroll, please?
My first ‘professional’ drawing!
This lovely, cuddly pair are Ivy (canine) and Stewie (feline). Stewie is short for Emma. No, I don’t know why, maybe Bean will tell us. They live with Kim, a good friend of Nadbugs’ Bean. (Don’t say a word on Bugs’ site yet, though – this picture is a surprise! We can’t spoil it.) I hear that pretty Ivy is under the weather; please send good thoughts her way.
I can’t wait to hear what Kim says when she gets her early Christmas present! I feel I know two of her furry kids quite well now, and I wish them all the best.
…catch your cat in the middle of a huge yawn, and stick your finger in their mouth? So they get a huge surprise when the yawn is over and there’s suddenly a squishy thing in the way?
I have to admit I do it when I can. I’m such a terrible cat-mom! But it makes me giggle, I can’t help myself.
I used to do it to people too, but they get annoyed.
Goodnight!
I bet you think about this the next time your kitty yawns in your face. 😀
I have one week until my Open Fair ‘exhibition.’ I still don’t have a business name, email, or even a PayPal account. No panic… har…
I’ve mentioned a few times that it was one particular reader who gave me the idea and the hope and the heart to attempt to sell my work. It was a lovely blogging lady in the UK named Annette, and she had asked my pricing on drawing her cats. Until then, it had never even occurred to me.
As a thank you, I drew her furry kids for free. I wasn’t charging when she asked, and I didn’t think it was fair to ask her to pay for what others were getting for free even though she offered. And I did owe her a huge thank you, and there’s really only one way I could show it, isn’t there?
This is Nobby, isn’t he a gorgeous boy?
This is his biography, from Annette: “This is Nobby. My cat soulmate. Clever, inquisitive, talkative, active, adventurous, athletic, brave, funny, loving, and Felix’s friend and protector. An alpha cat in touch with his feminine side!”
She told me afterward that beautiful Nobby is no longer with her. I cried.
This is Felix:
She told me this about him: “Loveable, playful, teddybear cat. Often bewildered by life, and not the sharpest tool in the box, but always ready with a purr…”
Sounds like my little Lokii 🙂
I’m happy to have met two more lovely fur-people and one very special human, and to have such an opportunity given to me. Thank you, thank you, Annette!
My Bengal Spot is trying to train me, again. I’m fighting it, but it is sooo hard…
He is nine- I think? -I’m not good at keeping track of these things. But he doesn’t act like it, he’s very playful and healthy. It’s just that he gets bored easily. When that happens, he plays games with his humans.
The easy game is ‘I want to sit with you, but I’m going to make you beg me to do it.’ It’s a long game, so he likes it a lot. It has two parts: in round one he stands on the coffee table and stares at the prime lap position he wants. Human talks to him, pats couch, makes kissy-noises, offers the best place under the blanket. He leans in, looks like he’ll come and lie down…then turns tail and walks away. Repeat 2-3 times. Round two of the game involves circling the living room doing bad things in order to get yelled at. He always goes clockwise and hits the same forbidden places in the same order: going behind the TV where the wire soup is dangerous, standing on the rickety DVD tower trying to push it over and/or reach my Peace lily, then back to the coffee table or the arm of the couch where he can leap onto the top of the bookshelf. He does these things deliberately to get our full attention. All we do is shout no at him, but that’s enough for him to be very happy and come trotting back with a smile on his face to sit on the coffee table and repeat round one. This goes on until I get sick of having to pay so much attention to him and not what I’m trying to watch on TV, and I grab him. Ah, the win goes to Spot every time. I’m rough with him; I grab him, shove him under my elbow, and pretty much sit on him to keep him there. Which is what he wanted all along. He loves being squished. The purring is deafening. Weird cat.
I recently tried grabbing him right away instead of letting him have the full game. At first, it seemed a brilliant solution. He was sooooo happy. So very happy that he got up and left within a few minutes so I would do it again. And later that night he was unbearable, wanting the new game over and over. Sigh.
He’s added in a new part to round two lately, and it is even more annoying. It consists simply of going into the kitchen and howling at the sliding glass door. Repeatedly. I am not amused. He sounds like he is in pain! It’s the most pathetic, woeful sound. The only time he sounds worse is when he has a nightmare – that is terrifying. I’m only guessing about the nightmares, actually. We did catch him twice waking up from a sound sleep and immediately screaming, so that’s our best guess. He never acted as if anything hurt, or ran to the toilet or any other indication of physical pain. But wow, it was scary – he only did it a few times in the space of a few months then stopped.
But the one that I’m fighting so hard against is the 2am ‘come play with me’ caterwaul. He wakes up, his cat-brother and dog-sister and both humans are asleep, and he’s bored. What to do? Wake ’em all up, of course!
Mwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow! Mrrwow. Mrrwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow? MMMMWOW! MMMRRROW! MMM-GURGLE-ROW!
By now, we are all awake, staring unmoving at the ceiling, and hoping against hope he’ll stop on his own.
He won’t.
My solution is to go downstairs, shut the living room door, go into the kitchen, shut that door, fill the nearest receptacle with water and then trap him in the living room to throw the water all over him. He never tries to get upstairs, and lets himself be trapped. He appears to enjoy it when I chase him around trying to corner him in a place I don’t mind getting wet. He doesn’t even really mind the water, but he has to shut up for a while to dry himself off.
I’m really hoping I’m training him this time, and not the other way around. He does it less and less, but I have a harder and harder time getting back to sleep.
Look at him there, all innocent as he tries to smother his brother to death in his sleep. I’m not falling for that one, either.
I’ve been busy, I did Fergus and most of Ian here last night, and a goldfish today so far. I need to write something!
Ian is a nice Manchester lad, don’t let anyone tell you different! I’m sure he is never, ever, a hooligan. He might like Morrissey, though.
Ian belongs to a new friend of mine. She was over the house last week and I showed her my drawings, and she asked if I could do her kitty, too. She’s such a lovely gal, with a lovely kitty!
Poor Lokii. I know he’s not that smart, but I can’t imagine roasting his little brain inside his skull is doing him any good.
Yes, he’s asleep with his head stuck in the hot radiator. Sheesh.
Uuuurgh. It’s not quite seven am and I’ve been up since 6:20 after a sleepless night ending in Spot starting his screeching nonsense and hubby getting up to inflict the cure. I’ll have to explain that another time. In any case, the cats think it is great fun that I’m downstairs and they are rampaging through the house to show their pleasure. Fog, my arse. It’s thunder little cat feet reminds me of.
I have had a weird half-head headache that comes and goes in short blasts behind and above my right ear. It’s probably sinus related, but may be an ear thing. I’m going with sinuses. I’m not particularly congested, but the right side of my nose is a bloody mess inside. Don’t think I’ve had something like this go on for so long without getting better or turn into an infection. I avoid the doctor as long as possible; until it turns into an infection I’d rather not have antibiotics. Even if I wanted to see the doc, I’ve got a 10 am job interview.
So of course, I’ve had very little sleep. Right before bed I read a good short story about zombies that inspired some great dreams. I mean that – not scary but very exciting. It takes some serious gore before I get scared in a dream. It did wake me up, or perhaps I just woke up naturally at a point where I could remember part of the dream. I tried to keep it going when I went back to sleep but only succeeded a little bit. I was zombie hunting!
One of my thoughts on reading the story was my continuing disappointment in how the women never, or rarely, kick ass in zombie tales. Seen The Walking Dead? The women in that show are skinnier and weaker than the animated corpses. I’d rather look at a rotting shambling dead thing than see the female lead in shorts and a tank top. She is so thin she makes me feel sick to my stomach. But that’s beside the point. The point is that even though I enjoyed the story I read, the only female character was a computer whiz hidden away from the action.
The guys, of course, are running around blowing the heads off zombies with accuracy and alacrity, and a good dose of stupidity. How can you not smell a damn zombie?
There’s these yahoos running around inside buildings, looking for the undead. They get surprised a lot. Of course that’s exciting in a book, it would get old fast if no one ever was in any real danger. But where are the women? The most prissy girly-girl in the world would be a great addition to a zombie hunting team! Much better than some hardened career soldier, a fashion junkie will notice disgusting things. Put Barbie in a room full of furniture and one tiny spider, and she’ll find it. Loudly.
Well, the loud part isn’t good for zombie hunting. Maybe an earbud sensor that beeps for the rest of the team when she pisses herself would be more efficient. Not very dignified, but since she’s insisting on full makeup and heels in the apocalypse, she doesn’t get to refuse.
And I wonder why I can’t sleep.
(The story was an excerpt from Orpheus by Dan DeWitt, released this year, his first full-length novel apparently)
heretherebespiders 