We finally got to see Raya and the Last Dragon on Disney+, and I was absolutely mesmerised by the dragon Sisu, voiced by Awkwafina. She reminded me so much of Lorelai that I had to draw her as the dragon. Here is my first sketch.
Followed up by the ink outline.
I did colour layers both underneath and over the ink outline, and then covered up some of the black lines with matching colours.
This is the finished Procreate drawing, sans background, before shifting to Photoshop.
Add a background and some outer glow on some of the layers…and here is the finished piece.
As always, here’s the video of the Procreate drawing process. Click on the image to watch the video in Flickr.
Since we’ve had to keep Lorelai on a leash, the neighbourhood kids are asking to pet her, hold her, and walk her on her leash. Interestingly, it’s mainly boys who are asking! They get so excited when they see us, and if we’re out without the cats, they ask us when we’ll bring them out again.
It’s so much fun to watch them interact with Rory. And I get it…when I was a kid, I always wanted to “help” neighbours walk their dogs. There’s something about holding the end of a leash with an animal at the other end of it that’s like no other feeling.
One thing all of the cats love to do when we go outside is chew on the grass. Alfred and Lorelai especially enjoy chomping on fresh, green bladage.
It’s funny. Izaak and Dashiell aren’t as much into eating grass. But it’s the first thing Freddy and Rory do when we open the front door.
Nom nom nom.
Sometimes, though, the camera catches some humourous faces.
Like this one. Freddy’s trying to catch moving grass…but he looks like he’s doing a heckin’ screm.
Singapuras, having American Burmese in their ancestry, are brachycephalic. They’re not as bad as, say, Persians and Exotics, but it’s there.
With Izaak, it doesn’t really cause any problems, except he gets black eye boogers pretty much every day.
Okay, so maybe it causes a little problem for Zak.
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Because Zak hates having his eyes cleaned.
But he is such a good boy, all he does is push my hands away.
And he is wicked strong, too!
As I was cleaning his eyes the other day, I came up with a little song:
Hands…pushing hands…I don’t want…you to clean…my eyes
Don’t clean my eyes!
(Bom Bom Bom)
I like them just the way they are…
(are…are…are…)
Or, if you prefer something a little more modern:
Don’t clean…Don’t clean my…
Don’t clean my eyes for me
And that, right there, is the Singapura Stink-Eye™!
Ever since I did a family portrait of Izaak and his brothers Paulo and Keiko, I have wanted to do another one of the three.
I really wanted to do an old-timey Victorian-era type portrait, but I couldn’t find any backgrounds I liked…until I found this old photo of the Brooklyn Bridge when it was new.
I added some texture and lighting effects…
…merged the layers, added a little more texture, and here we are: the brothers in Brooklyn.
The other day, Dashiell was sitting in the window and he looked so handsome and photogenic, I had to capture him.
I mean, just look at him!
His coat is so very shiny. All of the cats have great fur (I think it’s the raw/Bozita diet), but none of them are as shiny as he is. It’s like he has special reflective hair.
“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful…”
The other day, Björn and I watched a movie I bought ages ago to have enough to get free shipping and then completely forgot about: Une Vie de Chat – A Cat in Paris. It’s a French film about a cat named Nico who leads a double life: Cat burglar’s partner by night, little girl’s adored companion by day.
It’s a marvelous movie, with suspense, intrigue, pathos and humour. But what struck me most was this one cat during the opening credits.
Kind of looks like an Abyssinian, don’t you think? At least the colour is spot on.
Whilst the plot definitely holds your interest…it’s the art that really captivates. It looks like hand-drawn colour pencil drawings, and the way it’s done, the colouring is constantly moving. It’s kind of mesmerising. We watched the dubbed version, and the English voices are a nice mix of British and American; it’s better than most dubbing jobs. If you can find it, it’s a great cat-themed film, showing that cats can be loyal and love their humans.
It has been raining really hard for the past two days – lightning, thunder, and a tremendous amount of precipitation. Last week, however was sunny and bright.
When we went outside, I was struck by the way Izaak’s shadow looked. I had to take some Hipstamatic snaps of him.
The 20th of June is a good day to adopt a cat. Three years ago today I took a trip to Stockholm to collect Izaak.
He was so tiny!
The kitten harness I got for him was too big, so I had to improvise.
He was so intimidated by the big cats. He was smaller than even Lorelai!
To be perfectly honest, I was a little afraid he hadn’t been properly socialised.
The vet didn’t quite believe he was really five months old.
My concerns about his socialisation were, of course, unfounded. This was his first outside romp, three days after he arrived.
Two days after that, he discovered IKEA mousies.
He wasn’t registered in Sverak when we went to Rory’s first show at the end of June, so he had to miss it. He did, however, help me pack.
Not long after that, he started his very serious relationship with chicken necks.
Hard to believe that that tiny scrap became this burly, confident cat.
Zak isn’t the only 20 June baby. 30 years ago today, I adopted my first purebred cat, Harri. He was my first “do everything” cat.
On 20 June 2005, we went to Quincy and brought Kylie home! Happy Gotcha Day everyone!
A couple in the C part of our building recently got a Swedish Vallhund puppy. We’ve seen them walking him outside, but we had yet to be outside with the cats when they were training him.
Until last Thursday, when we took the recyclables out. As we know, Lorelai likes dogs. But she’s never really met a puppy before.
The pup is really young, and he’s squirmy and yappy. At first, Rory was a little taken aback.
But eventually they touched noses.
Then Alfred strolled up to meet the puppy, whose name is Toke (Pronounced “TOH-kuh”).
It was pretty funny to see how big Toke made Freddy look. Toke looks a little intimidated. Toke’s humans were happy to introduce him to our cats; they want to get a kitten as well.
And then Izaak joined the party.
“That sure is a funny-looking cat!”
“Wait…That’s no cat!”
Five years ago today, Jacoby, Angel and I landed in Stockholm.
We took IcelandAir, which requires pets to travel in crates in a special pet cargo hold. It’s actually really great, because they allow two pets of the same species in one carrier. When we changed planes in Reykjavik, I actually saw them being loaded on the new plane.
We had a LOT of luggage. That was fun on the train to Skövde.
But once we had it all stashed, it was a very comfortable ride. Jake was enjoying the view immensely.
And then…
…we were home.
So…this happened the other day.
Angel was sleeping on the IKEA cat bed, which is Lorelai’s usual afternoon, post-breakfast napping spot of choice.
So Rory, seeing Angel in her “spot,” just decided to join her. And Angel went with it.
It’s kind of a big deal, because Angel isn’t exactly known for her cuddling with other cats. Voluntarily, anyway.
But then, this happened: Rory started licking Angel’s head! And Angel LET her!
It was just so sweet to see Angel accepting cuddles from another girlcat!
There’s a fun meme going around that involves a simple line drawing of a cat’s head and four paws, captioned “Complete this cat for the laughs.” Well. I like cats, and laughing, so sure!
As a warm-up, I did this silly sketch of two cats dancing.
Then, I decided to play with colours and brushes, so I drew Jacoby in his parka.
Painting fur was fun, so I decided to paint some feathers. I also made the kitty a little happier. Silly, maybe…but any excuse to draw, right?
One of Izaak’s favourite summer sunspots is on the rug in the living room.
One day, he flopped down and there was this interesting series of stripes in the shadows.
How could I resist?
And of course,
The other day when we took the cats outside, Björn got the idea to use his phone’s front camera to take some photos of Lorelai from a different angle.
Rory was standing on the rug frame, so Björn took photos of her from underneath.
I’ve got to admit…I never really thought about taking photos from below like this. Pretty brilliant, I think.
Rory seemed to like it, too.
Björn managed to get himself into a couple of the shots as well. I think they’re cute.
Dashiell is a very beautiful and graceful cat.
As long as he’s standing still.
As handsome as Dash is, he has a very…awkward way of walking.
Standing: Gorgeous.
Walking…not so much.
Even though we’re pretty sure what day is Angel’s real birthday, we celebrate it on 11 June.
Even though she’s done this since her second birthday in 2009, the candles still make her a little nervous.
A fear she gets over with pretty quickly when food is involved. I had to blow those candles out pretty quickly to avoid singed whiskers…or worse.
Once the candles were out, though…she didn’t hesitate to dig into her “cake.” I can’t believe she’s 14 years old.
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 