Well happy new year all. I hope your holidays were great. Mine were pretty good aside from a very major event. I am an animal lover as many know, I've been a vegetarian for 12 years and an off an on vegan for about 5 now I guess. But I love pets as well. Summer of 2008 I adopted two kittens, Bullet and her brother Joshua. I was really attached to both of them very quickly. The following winter I was homeless trying to finish my last semester of school, living in secret under a desk in one of the illustration major studios. I sent my cats to my parents until I worked things out. The day before I found a place to stay Bullet was hit by a car. My parents house is a big farm and my cats loved the outdoors, loved it. I never let them out in the city but my parents couldn't keep them inside because they would wreck up the place until they got their way. We've had pets my whole life and the road the house is on is extremely dangerous. I felt awful about losing her. I felt like a bad person for losing my house and income and all these things that I had to send them there. Plus Joshua had never been without his sister and didn't comprehend death so he was off about it for a long long while. I haven't really gotten over it myself. But as some of you know I had to go through a loss of residence yet again when I was hit by a car in October, which put me out of work and income. This time I moved back with my parents, my little cat in tow. I didn't want to let him outside but he loved the outdoors so much. He would chase the wild turkeys in the back field and climb up all the trees. I thought that if I had children I couldn't keep them from the playground or something because they might get hurt and he was always running around the back field. A two days after christmas I let him outside, when I went to call him, he didn't come for hours and hours into the night so I went out to look for him. I walked to the edge of the driveway and looked down the street but all I saw were white snow drifts in the grass, but one looked kind of odd. I then realized it wasn't a snow drift after all, it was my cat stretched out in the grass. My friend and boss, Ed had been at the house to pick up the key to the production studio and he was walking to his car behind me. He said all he heard was me scream and when he turned he said my legs gave out and I was clutching the telephone pole. I don't remember it that specifically. I went to touch my cat, hoping he was still there, that we could take him to the vet but he was cold and ed starting dragging me back toward the house. By that time my parents heard me and woke up. My boyfriend was over and he came running out with them and I was a mess. I could only think about him being all alone, waiting for someone to come find him, to save him and I left him there. Just like his sister waited for me. I never came for them, I didn't save them. I didn't get to hold him one last time, I didn't go to bury him. My dad took him early in the morning and buried him alone next to his sister in the back under some trees past the horse pasture. I guess he was right to go without me, I couldn't bear to put him in the ground. It was just one minute he was there, then gone. For some people, they don't understand the pet thing. I don't either I guess. but someone might as well carve out the middle of me and expect me to live. I'm still pretty much devestated. I've been bouncing around between my parents, to my old house in philadelphia and my boyfriend's for months and now I'm ever more restless between them all. I'm not sure what to do with my grief but as I've been living out of the living room in my old house with my old roommates I decided I wanted to paint him. I don't do a lot of traditional paintings let alone classic style traditional paintings. I actually swore off oil paints entirely as the devil after my class with Tom Leonard showed me the power the paints have to ruin my life. But I'm sitting there in the living room with a piece of canvas paper (which is a brilliant thing I just found out about), and I started doing a charcoal sketch like in anatomy class, i traced it with a crayola black crayon since i had no watercolor pencils, I then did a version of a traditional oil wipe out but with acrylics with more of a watercolor painting technique. Then a purple acrylic under painting. Then I got my old roommate's oil paints out, those terrible terrible things, and her old brushes, used and abused, left in water for days and I painted. My pallet was my sketch book which I had wrapped in saran wrap. This was as ghetto and spur of the moment as you can get with painting I think. The whole thing took me about three days. I think my second experience with oils proved much better. Is it a spectacular oil painting? probably not. I think it looks like him and I do think it's a well done piece of art. I don't know if it helps my grief. I have a lot of pictures of him but this one seems to have his spirit in it, so maybe that helps. It's still drying. because it's oil and will never stop drying.
I have photos on my twitter of all the stages except the under painting, so it jumps from the "wipe out" stage to the final. http://twitter.com/paintedgrenades
My next creative endevour ended up being a hairstylist to all my old roommates. I'm apparently really good at cutting hair. I mean I just started cutting my own because the salon is a rip off. but I gave my roommates Angela a pretty great hair cut as well as one to Boss Ed though he hates it because guys never actually like good haircuts unless they're metro. I also did everybody's make-up. It was 14 year old's slumber party up in south philly.
I also did two little character sketches for my latest comic idea. I need to grab a scanner but I'll post them because I'm found of them as well as my costume ideas. I did "Morgan" the 14 yr old sister of character "Aaron" and "Missy DeWalt" the 17 yr old sister of character "Mark." I plan on doing some more today, as well as do a refined sketch for The Bakery website my old roommates are putting together. I'm much more productive when I'm in philadelphia.
I also did a lot of knitting and crocheting over this holiday. I made a really cute stuffed bear for my niece, a shaw for my mom, a bikini for my sister and an owl hat for my roommate. She, her new hair cut I gave her and the hat are also pictured here. Keep in mind my phone pictures are not great.
one day I suppose I'll get a real camera. For now though I have some food to eat and some art to make.
