Looking for Light

This time of year, the scant hours of daylight start to get to me. It's not that I don't love the beauty of winter twilight, or enjoy the coziness of the season, because I do, but here we are, in the darkest days of the year, and nothing makes me feel better than days like yesterday when there were a few hours of sunshine and I could get out on my bike and ride for a while in the crisp air and abundant light. I am essentially a creature of sunlight.

I find myself creating illustrations that evoke light in the darkness. They make a light in my inner darkness as I continue to mourn the loss of my aunt. She loved light at Christmastime, too. Her Christmas village was a thing of legend. Someday, when we have room (and space where the cats won't find it a temptation), I'm going to have my own village set up, with twinkling lights and tiny trees.

I shudder to think of what Tobycat, who looks so innocent here, would do to a tiny village if he had the chance. My sweet silly ginger boy! I do love him. Even if he IS the reason we can't have nice things.

Busy, Busy

It's actually been a pretty busy month. I found out about this thing called Inktober over on Tumblr. 31 days of daily ink drawings. For me, it's been casual and fun. It's basically turned into 31 days of cat drawings. I let it.

I've found myself trying some new things, and finding some ideas to work up into more formal treatments. These are the casual drawings that have led (or will lead) to more finished pieces:

 Nyaang, the Last Catnipbender

Many-Armed Cat Goddess

Notre Dame des Petite Chats

 Sibyl Cat

I'll be posting the formal, finished pieces soon. Here's a peek of Notre Dame des Petite Chats in progress:

Fuzzy Pye and Toby Fat Butt

These are my fiance's cats, who have, by some mysterious process of love and adoption, become my cats as well. The fuzzalorum calico is Pyewacket (her name comes from Bell, Book and Candle), aka Pye, Princess, and Butterfly Girl , and the marmalade boy is Toby, aka Tobycakes and Toby Fat Butt.

Don't let this image of domestic tranquility fool you. They don't actually get along. But I recently managed to catch them having a rare moment of co-relaxation, with Tobes in his usual jelly roll curl, and Pye sprawled out in a distinctly undignified manner, on the off chance that someone might come along and offer her belly skritches.

With my allergies, I never thought I'd be able to have cats, but here we are. Toby in particular has adopted me as his Preferred Person, and I love that maddening little orange furball more than I can say. I love both of them.