Today I tried to sketch Spook, my other cat. Officially, Sammy is my cat, and Spook is Sammy’s cat. When I first got Sammy, she was cooped up all alone during the day — I worked in a real office then — and when I came home and tried to write or do anything she needed a lot of attention. I thought she might enjoy having a pet of her own, to keep her company.
I visited Animal Friends, which was then in the Strip District in Pittsburgh. I looked for a male cat, younger than Sammie, having read that this would be the most likely cat for Sammie to accept/not freak out about.
Spook was just about a year old. He’d been rescued from another shelter on New Year’s Eve. He was very affectionate and shy at the same time: couldn’t stand to be picked up, loved to sit on your lap. He was a little more timid than what I had hoped for,but he was the best fit, so home he came.
It took a couple of days for him and Sammie to grow acclimated to each other. Now, almost six years later, it’s hard to imagine them being with any other cats.
Spook is a very handsome cat, but he really doesn’t like having anyone stare at him, so drawing him head-on is impossible. I started with the small head and he got up and settled down again with his profile toward me. He has a fabulous profile — movie star quality — so I was pleased to get to draw that.
Then I decided to draw just his eyes, so I kept calling him over. He’d come and look at me, then move away. The larger version of his face therefore took longer to draw, but it captures a little of his attentiveness and his heartbreaking look of wistful longing.
NaNoWriMo: Just wrote 500 words in fifteen minutes, and I didn’t even hate them too badly. Stopped only to post this before midnight. (And to check football scores.) Aiming for 2500 more words before bed — plus it’s trash night.
Here we go!