A fully caffinated blue cat
Who reads books and survives
Over the Jolabokaflod holidays I've been thinking about cats and their “nine lives” ability to survive almost anything.
And I started doodling in the middle of a new blank sketchbook. I doodled over many different mornings a little bit at a time. It was the holidays so I took my morning drawing routine much more lightly - I posted online less too - as the point was to take a break. Yet I wanted to maintain the habit of drawing in my sketchbook first before beginning the day.
After more than a few mornings drawing squiggly squares along the top of both of the sketchbook pages I drew a blue ink and water wash cat. My drawing of a cat was the result of tough chair-sharing negotiations with a fierce saber tooth tiger.
Here's the beginning of the drawing of a cat…
… during several more mornings I added more blue ink lines to the cat drawing.
More mornings found me adding more squiggly squares…
…and then adding cat whiskers.
Part of the holiday morning chair-sharing agreement has been compliance with the cat commandment that humans are to pick a book and make a lap “neow!”
Between ourselves and our Fairy Goddaughter, who celebrated Jolabokaflod with us on Dec 24, we have 34 new-to-us books to read now and into the new year!!
An excellent newsletter by
about the importance of a habit of reading is here 👇
An especially good book that my wife
loved, which I'm currently reading so we can loan it to our Fairy Goddaughter, is titled The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa.
I'm also reading Never Say You Can't Survive by Charlie Jane Anders and finding it helpful and encouraging for creativity sake.
Here's one of my favorite pages so far from the above book by Anders.
Heading into the new year I'm thinking about what I want more of and who/what I want to “dote on”1… so I began this sketchbook drawing with a gentle renewal2 message to myself - wanting my spirit of hope to survive3 whatever comes.
On another morning I added some color to that same sketchbook page…
… and I'll keep working on it during upcoming mornings until the cat becomes more blue-cat!
I hope your weekend is rejuvenating. Thank you for being here!
Thank you, to all of you, for your ongoing patronage and support of my work! I appreciate every one of you! If you're a paid subscriber please feel free to access or download any or all of the 24 ebooks that I've written and illustrated which you can download and access anytime you wish from this index page.
Thank you again for being here!! 💚💚
I have so many things to say!
1. I absolutely love seeing your slow process of adding to the drawing over days. I don't tend to do slow in this way and it's a treat to see.
2. "Neow" :-p :-p :-p
3. The illustration on The Cat Who Saved Books is great!
4. I didn't know Charlie Jane Anders has a nonfiction book and I'm so intrigued. During the first few years that I lived here in San Francisco (~2006-8), I often went to Writers with Drinks, the multi-author reading series that Charlie Jane put on at The Makeout Room in The Mission and I have a million fond memories of those times. I confess that I could rarely get too into the scifi Anders shared but loved their presence anyway. Love it.
5. Happy new year friend :)
Love your caffeinated blue cats!