Good bye Dynamite

At 14.5 years old, our cat, Dynamite, suddenly passed away early Thanksgiving morning.  Michael and I were both heartbroken.  The first week was especially rough dealing with the grief of losing her.  She was so much more than a cat or pet to us.  She was family.  She was our baby before we had a baby.  She was our muse.  She taught me a lot about love and honesty.  She provided so much love and joy to us.  She gave us a million moments of absurd hilarity, and millions more moments of perfect, quiet companionship.  Our family feels like it's missing an important piece now.

A quick glance through my doodles will show you that it's mostly cats.  It was all inspired by Dynamite.  The art that flowed most easily and joyfully out of me was always those doodles of cats as I envisioned Dynamite on all kinds of imaginary adventures.

Her passing was a devastating loss for our family, but as I dig up memories of her, I am inspired to resume sketching and dreaming.  I spent the last 3 years diving deep into technical skills.  Now I emerge from it feeling empowered.  But art and story was always food for my soul.  And I can think of no better way to honor Dynamite's memory, than resuming my "Official Kitty Cat Business" comic and just drawing a ridiculous amount of cats.

A month later, the crippling grief is gone (nevermind, it still comes back every other week or so), but the sadness is still there.  I think we'll be okay, but we'll be feeling this for a long time.  We still miss and think about her everyday.  I still listen for her taptaptap on the hardwood floors.  I still look for her in my closet.  I still think about the last affectionate head bump I got from her.

Dynamite, my sweet girl, you will never be forgotten.  Thank you for spending your life with us because you made every moment sweeter.  Thank you for your love, your sass, your inspiration, and the profound impact you had on my relationship with Michael.  I will love you forever and ever.

And here are some new cat sketches.

Cat walk cycle

Look what I made last night!  It's a pretty rough cat walk cycle.  My first 2d walk cycle and I think it's pretty cute :)  Trying to bring my usual cat doodle to life and find the style of its movement.

I'll add more polish later, but look how cute!

Official Kitty Cat Business - strip 4

Here's the 4th strip of Official Kitty Cat Business.  She finally got to work.

Official Kitty Cat Business

Just started putting together a little comic series that I've been brewing for a while.  Simple but fun.  It tells a story of a kitty cat who works an office job as cuddle technician.

Working on creating a more official little page for it.

New sketches and progress on "Tea For Two"

I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to develop my style for Project Apricot and other projects that require stretch beyond what is naturally comfortable for me.  But this style is what I naturally gravitate towards when I doodle.  It's nice every now and then to develop these doodles further and get something cute out of it.

golden gate view

jamz

next iteration of "Tea for Two"

Classy Cats!

I'm starting a new series of doodles I call "Classy Cats".  These are a little rough, but I like the feel of them :)

Classy!  I'll clean it up more and work on coloring them later.  Stay classy peeps.

Cat Pirates!

Over the last 5 years at work, I've started going to more and more meetings.  That happens to correlate with the amount of idle doodling that I do during the day.  (It helps me concentrate in meetings, really!)  As a result I've developed an entire style of doodling that features cats.  Lots and lots of cats.

Here's a sample of the style and content of my doodling.  I present:  Cat Pirates!  I whipped this one up in photoshop partly because I need a new cover photo for facebook.

And here's my new profile picture, inspired by my trips to The Counter and their burger customization system.