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.
Our friend Kinsey posted this photo to the “This Cat is PHOTOSHOPPED” facebook group and asked to have Paulo wearing a mask.
Welp. That was easy. Then I had an idea.
LOL why not, right?
But then I got the idea to put my Singapura mask on Paulo.
Pretty cute, eh? Then…Kinsey asked for Paulo to be dressed up in a tux for prom.
Considering I already have the perfect cat-sized tuxedo bib and tie, top hat, and cuffs with cufflinks…not a hard ask.
The shadows are already perfect, too. This was fun.
Our friend Kinsey shared some professional photos that were taken of Izaak’s brothers, Paulo and Keiko. I instantly knew what had to be done.
A family portrait, of course! Since all three boys came from Poland, I chose a Polish flag as my background.
Then I decided to set the scene…literally.
Finally, every portrait needs a frame, right? Can you tell who is who?
My sister’s birthday is tomorrow. I got her a card, but things being what they are, I didn’t mail it in time. So, I reckoned I’d just sent it to her electronically. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I always draw a little cartoon in the cards I send people. But if I’m Messaging my sister her card, what’s the best way to add my traditional drawing?
With Procreate and Photoshop, of course! And this card drawing is better than most, because I was actually able to do a sketch beforehand. Usually, I just freehand the drawing in ink.
This is the ink version, done in Procreate.
If you’re interested, you can watch the Procreate time-lapse video of the sketch and ink on Flickr. Click the image to view the video in another tab.
And here is the inside of the card that my sister will get tomorrow. The Swedish translates to: “If you were a cat, you’d be turning a hundred and eleventy-twelve years! Congratulations on your Birthday!”
After a day of joy…a day of sadness.
Dashiell’s sister, Junie-Purr, had a singleton kitten five weeks ago. She was very sick with pneumonia during her pregnancy and needed emergency antibiotics. Then, suddenly, last Friday, Meg found Junie dead in her bed cuddling her kitten. She isn’t sure what caused it, as Junie seemed to be doing better, but she has sent Junie’s body to Tufts Veterinary for a necropsy to find out what happened.
Yesterday, Bugsie, Dash’s little niece, started refusing to eat.
Meg cuddled her and kept her warm and tried to get her to eat whilst watching the Inauguration.
Later in the evening, little Bugsie seemed to be perking up a little. She cuddled Meg and they watched the Inauguration Celebration together. Then they went to bed.
Unfortunately, this morning, little Bugsie was gone. She just wasn’t strong enough. Meg’s vet says it is likely she was damaged from the strong antibiotics the ER vets had to use to save her mother. Her little gut was not able to handle solid food, and her little bones were soft.
My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend has stopped running today. Sleep well in Tuonela, dear, sweet Junie, with your beloved kitten Bugsie.
This week, Meg sent me a bunch of photos of Dashiell and his littermates, along with photos of his mother, Anubis Evita Loca. Meg said, “She has never been shown; she is far too squirrely. However, she makes beautiful babies.” Okay…that squirrellyness might explain why Dash is so skittish!
The top photo is Evita as a kitten. This photo is a photo of her a week or two later.
I love the way baby Abys have that tuft of sticky-up hair between their ears at a certain age.
Here’s Evita at a few months old.
And here she is as a young adult. Dash does look a bit like her, don’t you think?
This is Dash and his littermates, Rami, brother, and Junie Purr (now GC, RW Anubis Junie Purr). They are one week old in this photo.
Meg didn’t send me any current photos of Junie, but here are a couple of her as a kitten.
Here we have Dash and his brother Rami. Rami is on the left and Dash is on the right.
Here’s Rami at one of his first vet visits.
And here he is as an adult.
Rami actually goes outside, too, on a leash.
Isn’t he handsome?
Here is Dash as a teeny tiny kitten.
He’s a bit older here.
And here, he’s a bit older still.
Finally, here is Dash today. I wish we could go to actual shows. Especially CFA shows (which are rare in this part of Europe). Evita needs just one more of her children to become a Grand to earn a Distinguished Merit title.
If I could show him, I am sure he would do wonderfully.
Björn’s ex’s mother, Inger, is celebrating her 80th birthday this weekend. She always loved Jacoby, and Björn found a lovely cat-themed birthday card for her. This is the cover of the card.
The design is repeated inside the card, so I added a little sketch of Jake to the group of cats for her.
Today on Facebook, Anna (Izaak’s breeder) posted a photo of her newest litter of kittens.
Turns out, these kittens are Zak’s full siblings! Their father is Tinytoy Rus Mafoj*PL
and their mother is Angelina Minimali*PL.
Zak also has two older, famous brothers. Paolo and Keiko, five years older than Zak, are famous for their adventures. And they had another adventure (of sorts) today: Paolo and Keiko got neutered!
It wasn’t long before they escaped their Cones of Shame, but their human Kinsey sent me this video of them. Just click on the image to watch the video in another tab on Flickr.
It’s so cool to be part of such an illustrious family!
I had intended a better post for today, but we’re all well knackered from the trip to the vet…wrangling five cats on the bus is exhausting! But I had ordered some prints of my recent art projects to send to my mom and dad in the States, and they came today, so I got them ready to mail them tomorrow. My mom hasn’t got a computer (well, she has, but it’s on dial-up and is still running Netscape, so…), and I don’t know if my dad still has his since he’s in assisted living.
Anyway, I put each set into a greeting card, and as always, I did a little cat sketch in each card. I had a certain cat in mind on each sketch…can you tell who I drew?
Dashiell’s big brother, GC NW Anubis Loco-Motion of Santgria was recently featured in an announcement congratulating all the Preservation Breeders in the CFA.
Dash and Loco are full brothers from different litters. Doesn’t Loco look so much like Dash? I hope Dash will have half the show career Loco’s had. Some days, I just hope we’ll have shows again.
We brought Dashiell home in mid-August, and we took him outside as much as we could before the weather turned too cold and the afternoons got too dark.
At first, of course, we started him out on a leash.
He soon learned to go outside without one.
But it was so cute to see him interact with Angel outside.
For several weeks after Dash joined our family, Angel looked at him like she’d seen a ghost.
With good reason.
Look at Angel with Jacoby, when he was the same age as Dash in these photos. No wonder she thought she was seeing a ghost!
Especially when it’s your cat.
Sunday at the show, after Izaak had been judged and we were waiting for the Nominations, Lorelai was called up for her Nomination at the same time. So Björn had Rory and I had Zak. Then I dropped my phone and it came out of its case. I needed two hands to put it back in, so I handed Zak over to Björn. Then Zak started to cough up a hairball.
I raced over to the Secretary’s table and grabbed a piece of scratch paper, and got Zak to puke on it. Björn was right next to us, so I asked him to grab Zak whilst I dealt with the barf. In the time between me letting him go and Björn grabbing him…
…he decided this space under the folded-up bleachers (the show hall’s day job is a basketball arena). And he. Would not. Come. OUT. When he doesn’t want to be caught, he is a master. They announced that a cat was loose and to close all the doors, but I was like, “Yeah, no. The doors are the least of our worries!” He’s roaming around underneath the bleachers, and he’s up for Nomination like NOW
Finally, a woman with Siamese working the Secretary’s table called to me. She saw Zak in the corner, near her stroller. They asked me if I had any food that would lure him out. I said, “No…he won’t eat anything but raw and chicken necks. Does anyone have a raw chicken neck?” Yeah, nobody did. I had grabbed Chirpy Mouse and Zak’s favourite wand toy (a fishing lure blue crab I picked up in Baltimore), so we tried those. Chirpy Mouse had no effect, but Blue Crab got his attention. I almost grabbed him…but then he backed away. He wandered around a little more, and then came back to that corner, and, with the help of Blue Crab, I was able to grab him. The judge he was up for Nomination with, Glenn Sjöbom, asked me if I was okay and patted me on the back, telling me not to worry and not feel like I needed to rush. When he actually got nominated, I held him up, and, during the applause, I said to him, “You. Do. NOT. Deserve. This!”
I repeated that when he was declared Best In Show.
I don’t have any photos of the actual events…I was too busy trying to catch the little asshole.
But here’s the punchline to the whole escapade: Just after it happened my friend Kinsey posted on Facebook that Zak’s brother, Paolo had escaped that morning and led her on a merry chase around the neighbourhood before she managed to catch him again. He wears a tracker on his collar that she can track on her mobile.
One of her friends commented that it could only happen to Kinsey, and I chimed in, “Nope, not just Kinsey. Today at the cat show, Izaak, Paolo and Keiko’s younger brother, escaped and went exploring under the bleachers!”. To which Kinsey explained, “Must be in their genes. Paolo did that at a cat show once and I was on my hands and knees under the benches trying to get him.”
They ARE full brothers, perhaps not littermate brothers, but brothers nonetheless. Kinsey’s always posting about Paolo’s adventures…and by the smug, “sorry, not sorry” look on Zak’s face, I suspect I will be, too.
Izaak has two brave brothers and a daring neice, so he has bravery running through his veins.
And Zak is brave! The other day when we were outside, our upstairs neighbours were unpacking their car…and Zak just hopped right into Bruno’s doggy pen in the back! If ate dry food, he probably would have eaten that, too.
Whilst Sweden celebrates two weeks later, today is Mother’s day in North America. To celebrate, here is everyone with their mother. First we have Alfred with his brother Bertil with their mother, S*Truly Cosmic Nailah.
Here we have Lorelai with her brothers and sister and their mother, S*Primuz-Zezam Kajza.
Here is Logan with his Boston-born mum, Sopan Naina-of-Melur.
Here is Izaak being taught to scratch properly by his mum in Poland, Angelina Minimali*PL.
Jacoby, his sister and brother, and their mother, Instincts Catalina of Pellburn.
And finally, one of my favourite family photos of all time…Gun-Hee with his brother and sisters and their mom, Marica’s Bright Amber of Pellburn. I am grateful to the breeders who took all the above photos except the one of Freddy and his mum…it means so much to be able to see them with their littermates when you can’t always see them all together in person. I wish I had a kitten photo of Angel…with her mother or without. But at least I think I know who Angel’s mother is, so that’s something.
Two years ago this week, we went to Stockholm and met Alfred in person for the first time.
We’ve actually known him and his four littermates on Facebook almost from the day he was born.
He was a little character from the start.
I think he was born hungry.
But going to see him and four other kittens running around in real life…that was an experience.
Karin always called Freddy her “little philosopher,” and, true to the name, he took a little break from the boisterous kitten rodeo to sit on the cat tree and look out the window.
The funniest thing I remember from my first meeting with Freddy was when his mother decided it was time to go to bed. She picked him up and carried him upstairs to the bedroom.
Or tried to. Like most children, Freddy wasn’t ready to go to bed yet.
It took Mom a few tries to get a good hold. Our Freddy is a fighter!
But finally, she got a good, if awkward, grip on him…
…and Freddy was off to bed.
When I first met him, Freddy was a handsome little guy…
…and, two years later, he still looks the same.
One of the most amazing things that happened at the show this weekend was that we met (N)Tejas Glenn. Glenn has fathered thirteen offspring, including our own Lorelai. Yes, we met Rory’s father!
And Rory got to meet her father, too.
It was super heartwarming. She reached out to him, he wanted to sniff her…and there was no hissing or animosity. It was so touching.
Glenn is an exceedingly handsome Aby.
He actually reminds me a lot of Jacoby.
Besides meeting his daughter, Glenn had a pretty good day at the show (he was only entered in the show on Sunday).
He also earned his Supreme Champion title at this show! Supreme (Champion or Premier) is the highest honour a cat can attain in FIFe, so this is a big deal.
I was lucky enough to be able to watch Glenn being judged for his last certificate.
That’s my kitty’s dad!
But that’s not the only family that Rory had entered in the show.
CH S*Aucuparia’s Sevilla JW is Rory’s half-sister. She is seven months older than Rory, but they have the same father.
Rory got to meet her, too.
As with Glenn, when Rory met Sevilla, it was very sweet. Interest, but no hissing. I wonder if they knew they were family?
On Saturday, there were four Singapuras entered in the show. Izaak is now old enough to start earning titles, and he was up against three of Stellan’s cats. He wasn’t nominated, but he was up against a Singa who won at the Scandinavian Winners Show last spring! Little SW IC S*Kustens Chi Sarà Con Te was the BIV (Best in Variety) Singa and nominated both days. She was even Best in Show on Saturday!
But on Sunday, a fifth Singapura was entered in the show! And not just any Singa, either…SE*Melur’s Mistle, Logan’s half brother and another kitten from Naina, the Singa Björn brought back to Sweden with him in 2016!
Of course, Zak and I had to go meet him and his human, Charlotte! Mistel lives in Norway now.
Even more interesting, Charlotte breeds Maine Coons. So it’s a cattery full of Maine Coons…
…and one Singapura. The smallest cat breed living with a pack of the largest cat breed. Apparently, Mistle holds his own. I am not surprised.
Mistel and Zak are both in Class 9, the Open class for unneutered cats over 10 months old. Mistel is about a month older than Zak, so he was judged first.
Zak and I watched whilst we waited our turn.
When he got on the table, Zak really turned on the charm.
I mean, he really turned it on!
He also made sure that the judge wrote only nice things about him.
He was quite helpful, as you can see.
Because there were two Singas in the same class, only one could get the certificate. And, on Sunday, it was Zak who won the CAC (Certificat d’Aptitude au Championnat de Beauté). Mistel was Ex1. Yesterday, Zak had no Singa in his class, so he got his CAC by default. When he gets one more, he will be a Champion.
Meanwhile, Lorelai was the only blue Aby in the show. She is still in the Junior class (she turns 10 months old tomorrow), so she still only got EX1s. Our next show in Örebro in January, she will also be competing as an adult.
Rory wasn’t up for the nomination on Saturday at all, but on Sunday she really enchanted her judge.
She was up for the nomination with two adorable Devon Rexes.
A little blue-silver and white tabby girl…
And a copper-eyed white girl.
The judge, Glenn Sjöbom, was truly torn. I swear, he took at least ten minutes to decide which of these girls to nominate. In the end, it was the white Devon…but he said that this was the hardest decision he’d had to make all weekend.
All in all, despite not getting nominated, it was a fun weekend. Our friend Anna and Peter’s Aby Bonk earned his Supreme, and it was great seeing all our friends. And that’s really the point of the whole thing, isn’t it?
Quick show report from Vårgårda today.
Because of the funeral yesteday, we decided to cancel our motel reservation and just stay at home Friday and Saturday night. This meant a long, speedy, frenzied drive to the show hall this morning…only to face a long, slow line at check in. Of course.
Of course, once we got the cage set up, Lorelai and Izaak were their usual, over-stressed selves.
Although we did have a bit of excitement over the dried beefheart samples…
We were benched next to our friends Anna, Peter and Bonk. That was pleasant.
The big surprise was that Rory’s half-sister was entered in the show! They have the same mother, Kajza, but Adela was born in January 2017.
Here is Rory’s half-sister Adela up for judging.
Rory was up for judging first, before Zak.
The judge, Ulrika Eriksson, liked her well enough to call her back for the nominations.
She was up against this tabby-point and white Siamese…
…who ultimately ended up getting the nomination.
Then it was Izaak’s turn.
He was the only cat Jaana Jyrkinen judged today in his class (11 – Juniors, 7-10 months), so he got the nomination by default…but she loved him and would have had him in her final decision regardless.
Here’s Zak with his little Nom trophy.
…No, Zak…nothing to eat here…
We were so excited! This was Zak’s first nomination! Okay, it may have been by default…but still, it’s a nomination and it counts!
In the panel, Zak was up against a Bengal and a blue-spotted Ocicat.
It was close…but the Ocicat ended up being Best in Show today. But still, it was a good day for the only Singapura entered in the show!
The Daily Abyssinian...and Singapura 