#zoomorphics — Public Fediverse posts

Charlie and George: In their prime!

Today Charlie and George are seven years old. A prime birthday for kitties very much approaching their prime. Compared to the tiny little rescue beasties we first met they are monstrously large, magnificently mighty, and hugely handsome. Biased? Not at all!

I’ve posted many (many!) photos of these two over the years (for some examples, go read previous Kitten Reports, or just search under Charlie and George, or go read my Instagram or Bluesky accounts—more Charlie and George pictures than anyone (except their besotted staff) could possibly want).

So today I’ve gathered up a selection of my sketches, starting with my very first attempts—when I got my very first iPad with Pencil. They seemed as good a subject as any to experiment with. How old are they here? Honestly, I don’t know, but I’m guessing about two.

After a couple of weeks I got a bit better, figuring out how to (sort of) use (some) brushes on Procreate. This was when I discovered that Charlie had a gift I had hoped to never encounter again: the Paw of Permanent Delete. Two decades ago, this was a gift his forebear, Zack, had—with audio files. I’d spend an hour perfecting a reading from, say, Stay, only for Zack to trundle across the keyboard and just…erase everything. I don’t mean ‘erase to the most recent backup’, I mean make it unexist, as though I’d lived an hour in another universe. It was only ever audio files; never text or images. Sadly for me, Charlie has that gift—though only with Photoshop, and only on my iPad. Thankfully, at some point and some software update, his Paw was rendered inactive.

(Ah. He just opened his eyes, gave me a lazy yawn, a knowing blink, and a look that clearly said, That’s what you think…)

Anyway, after several traumatic days of work loss, I set my iPad and Pencil aside for a while—until I started working hard on maps for Menewood. But for whatever reason he wasn’t keen on those, so they (mostly) stayed safe.

But about a year ago I started to experiment with I call my Zoomorphics—copying and/or adapting the beautiful animal imagery of Early Medieval Britain, sometimes from their jewellery, sometimes from sculpture, and sometimes from il.uminated manuscripts, most often the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

I never liked the Early Medieval versions of cats (see this one, or this one) so I decided to try my hand at Charlie and George, seventh-century style. In case you can’t really tell which is which—I don’t blame you!—on the left is eorge curled up asleep with his eyes open, and on the right Charlie crouched to pounce on a catnip mouse.

Those feel a bit, well, jazzy to me (not to mention that George’s hindquarters look disconcertingly like a large ham)—though I have to say the picture of Charlie does capture some of that coiled-to-spring energy that is such a part of him.

Anyway, it was at this point that I started to really focus on how to adapt realistic-looking animal poses to Early Medieval artistic styles—and now I’m talking specifically a) the Lindisfarne Gospels (whose scribe had a wonderfully fluid style that I admire enormously—s/he was particularly gifted when it comes to animal heads: see, for example, George’s head above, and then a bit further down; lifted whole cloth from Lindisfarne) and b) the early pre-Christian Pictish Stones. The Pictish carvers could do realism quite well—but only if that animal was very statically posed. I had to learn make a lot of mistakes before I could figure out how to adapt a blend of Lindisfarne and Pictish styles to start to create my own.

Here’s a purely Lindisfarne image of a young—six months old, maybe—George just waking from one of those sudden kittenish naps, and here’s Charlie, taken from a photo last year, at the height of his summer weight and muscle, looking more like a 90-lb cougar than a 9-lb tabby. There’s something about Charlie facial expressions that make him much harder to draw in adapted medieval style; even that wonderful Lindisfarne scribe couldn’t catch our beastie’s Resting Demon Face.

And, just for a change, here’s a picture of George when he’s not asleep, or just waking up. This is from a photo taken a year or two ago of him stalking a leaf. And here is Charlie looking sweet as pie, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I forget what photo I used as a reference for this, though honestly it’s such a typical pose for him it could have been on of scores.

In the end what I’m trying to get at isi that Charlie and George are both now fully themselves. Their personalities have found their permanent form. That doesn’t mean they’re not growing and changing—they learn, absorb, and adapt all the time—but that they are distinct, and only growing more so as they gather experience and shape it around them.

George is still our kitty engineer—studying things carefully to work out the parameters and mechanism of action before engaging; after all, life is good and risk exists to be reduced to ensure continuing success. Charlie is still our, What’s that? Charge! knight in shining fur who will assume he is big enough to tackle anything and, after all, the world is his plaything.

They are both, of course, right. Kelley and I are honoured to host their magnificence and serve their needs as long as they’ll let us. We hope it will be many, many more years.

Charlie and George: In their prime!

Today Charlie and George are seven years old. A prime birthday for kitties very much approaching their prime. Compared to the tiny little rescue beasties we first met they are monstrously large, magnificently mighty, and hugely handsome. Biased? Not at all!

I’ve posted many (many!) photos of these two over the years (for some examples, go read previous Kitten Reports, or just search under Charlie and George, or go read my Instagram or Bluesky accounts—more Charlie and George pictures than anyone (except their besotted staff) could possibly want).

So today I’ve gathered up a selection of my sketches, starting with my very first attempts—when I got my very first iPad with Pencil. They seemed as good a subject as any to experiment with. How old are they here? Honestly, I don’t know, but I’m guessing about two.

After a couple of weeks I got a bit better, figuring out how to (sort of) use (some) brushes on Procreate. This was when I discovered that Charlie had a gift I had hoped to never encounter again: the Paw of Permanent Delete. Two decades ago, this was a gift his forebear, Zack, had—with audio files. I’d spend an hour perfecting a reading from, say, Stay, only for Zack to trundle across the keyboard and just…erase everything. I don’t mean ‘erase to the most recent backup’, I mean make it unexist, as though I’d lived an hour in another universe. It was only ever audio files; never text or images. Sadly for me, Charlie has that gift—though only with Photoshop, and only on my iPad. Thankfully, at some point and some software update, his Paw was rendered inactive.

(Ah. He just opened his eyes, gave me a lazy yawn, a knowing blink, and a look that clearly said, That’s what you think…)

Anyway, after several traumatic days of work loss, I set my iPad and Pencil aside for a while—until I started working hard on maps for Menewood. But for whatever reason he wasn’t keen on those, so they (mostly) stayed safe.

But about a year ago I started to experiment with I call my Zoomorphics—copying and/or adapting the beautiful animal imagery of Early Medieval Britain, sometimes from their jewellery, sometimes from sculpture, and sometimes from il.uminated manuscripts, most often the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Book of Kells.

I never liked the Early Medieval versions of cats (see this one, or this one) so I decided to try my hand at Charlie and George, seventh-century style. In case you can’t really tell which is which—I don’t blame you!—on the left is eorge curled up asleep with his eyes open, and on the right Charlie crouched to pounce on a catnip mouse.

Those feel a bit, well, jazzy to me (not to mention that George’s hindquarters look disconcertingly like a large ham)—though I have to say the picture of Charlie does capture some of that coiled-to-spring energy that is such a part of him.

Anyway, it was at this point that I started to really focus on how to adapt realistic-looking animal poses to Early Medieval artistic styles—and now I’m talking specifically a) the Lindisfarne Gospels (whose scribe had a wonderfully fluid style that I admire enormously—s/he was particularly gifted when it comes to animal heads: see, for example, George’s head above, and then a bit further down; lifted whole cloth from Lindisfarne) and b) the early pre-Christian Pictish Stones. The Pictish carvers could do realism quite well—but only if that animal was very statically posed. I had to learn make a lot of mistakes before I could figure out how to adapt a blend of Lindisfarne and Pictish styles to start to create my own.

Here’s a purely Lindisfarne image of a young—six months old, maybe—George just waking from one of those sudden kittenish naps, and here’s Charlie, taken from a photo last year, at the height of his summer weight and muscle, looking more like a 90-lb cougar than a 9-lb tabby. There’s something about Charlie facial expressions that make him much harder to draw in adapted medieval style; even that wonderful Lindisfarne scribe couldn’t catch our beastie’s Resting Demon Face.

And, just for a change, here’s a picture of George when he’s not asleep, or just waking up. This is from a photo taken a year or two ago of him stalking a leaf. And here is Charlie looking sweet as pie, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I forget what photo I used as a reference for this, though honestly it’s such a typical pose for him it could have been on of scores.

In the end what I’m trying to get at isi that Charlie and George are both now fully themselves. Their personalities have found their permanent form. That doesn’t mean they’re not growing and changing—they learn, absorb, and adapt all the time—but that they are distinct, and only growing more so as they gather experience and shape it around them.

George is still our kitty engineer—studying things carefully to work out the parameters and mechanism of action before engaging; after all, life is good and risk exists to be reduced to ensure continuing success. Charlie is still our, What’s that? Charge! knight in shining fur who will assume he is big enough to tackle anything and, after all, the world is his plaything.

They are both, of course, right. Kelley and I are honoured to host their magnificence and serve their needs as long as they’ll let us. We hope it will be many, many more years.

Pictish Beasts in Bronze

Remember the silver snakestone lapel pin I sometimes wear on my jacket? It was cast by MaudPunk (who also makes the great Fairford Duck pendants that Kelley likes so well). Now, with my blessing, she has used two of my Pictish- and one Viking coin-inspired animal designs to cast pendants. (The raven is from the Norse coin.) Right now they’re only for sale in bronze, but in a week or two they’ll be available in copper—and maybe silver? (Not sure about that.) Also, though I’m not sure of the timetable, she’ll cast the designs as lapel pins.

Each image below links to its Etsy sale page.

If metal isn’t your thing but linoprints are, another artist friend, Vicki Platts-Brown, is working on a couple of other images (flying heron and the boxing hares). More when I have it. And if neither metal nor paper work for you, I recently had a conversation with a ceramicist about mugs. Stay tuned!

Pictish Beasts in Bronze

Remember the silver snakestone lapel pin I sometimes wear on my jacket? It was cast by MaudPunk (who also makes the great Fairford Duck pendants that Kelley likes so well). Now, with my blessing, she has used two of my Pictish- and one Viking coin-inspired animal designs to cast pendants. (The raven is from the Norse coin.) Right now they’re only for sale in bronze, but in a week or two they’ll be available in copper—and maybe silver? (Not sure about that.) Also, though I’m not sure of the timetable, she’ll cast the designs as lapel pins.

Each image below links to its Etsy sale page.

If metal isn’t your thing but linoprints are, another artist friend, Vicki Platts-Brown, is working on a couple of other images (flying heron and the boxing hares). More when I have it. And if neither metal nor paper work for you, I recently had a conversation with a ceramicist about mugs. Stay tuned!

Pictish Beasts in Bronze

Remember the silver snakestone lapel pin I sometimes wear on my jacket? It was cast by MaudPunk (who also makes the great Fairford Duck pendants that Kelley likes so well). Now, with my blessing, she has used two of my Pictish- and one Viking coin-inspired animal designs to cast pendants. (The raven is from the Norse coin.) Right now they’re only for sale in bronze, but in a week or two they’ll be available in copper—and maybe silver? (Not sure about that.) Also, though I’m not sure of the timetable, she’ll cast the designs as lapel pins.

Each image below links to its Etsy sale page.

If metal isn’t your thing but linoprints are, another artist friend, Vicki Platts-Brown, is working on a couple of other images (flying heron and the boxing hares). More when I have it. And if neither metal nor paper work for you, I recently had a conversation with a ceramicist about mugs. Stay tuned!

Dear Reader: a note about SHE IS HERE

I have a new book coming VERY SOON. I, of course, want you to read it. I’m also trying to find time to prep the events—y’know, what bit/s to read, how to talk about the book—before those events actually begin. Which means I’ve been working out how to talk about the book.

I thought you might like to see what I came up with.

Dear Reader,

Novelists learn very early in their careers to summarise every new book with a pithy phrase. (My first novel Ammonite: “Change or die.”) But today, less than a month before the publication of She Is Here, I am still struggling to define it. Perhaps that’s because it’s not a novel—nor all fiction, nor even prose. Not even text. 
      She Is Here is a selection of various published and unpublished creations spanning my career from before the publication of that first novel through to today. The fiction ranges from very short, to very early, to a novella about the magic of music published here for the first time. The poems were written to express emotion in private—grief, refusing ableism, dangerous lust, and the despair of degenerative illness. None are previously published—in fact, this marks the first publication of any of my poems anywhere. Similarly, I made the art purely for its own sake—in this case, images (very) loosely inspired by the illuminations of Early Medieval gospels. The non-fiction ranges from manifesto to Op-Ed to epistolary criticism to musings on etymology and the double-edged tool that is branding. Different facets from different eras of my creative life.
      That long-ago tagline, “Change or die,” was perfect for Ammonite. More than 30 years later I find it has become the bedrock principle of my life. Writers are often advised to write what we know. I believe, rather, that we write from our deepest self, from who we are. If we want our work to change and grow, we must, too. Life is change—constant discovery.
      The last words of “Glimmer,” the shortest fiction in the book, are “She is here. She has arrived.” The narrator has made a galaxy-spanning journey through time and space, past reality—astonishing, impossible—a miraculous achievement. But the achievement, the arrival, isn’t the point; the rest of her life is about to begin. Because it’s always about to begin.
     She Is Here, then, is a snapshot of a moment in time, containing, as do all of us, bits of the past, present and future. A kind of creative Commonplace Book.
      She is here. I am here. But where, exactly, is that? I have no idea; that’s the point! The joy lies in continuing to find out…

If you like the sound of that, perhaps you’d like to join me for one of those events in Seattle or Edmonds or virtually, before or during publication. I’m curious about what aspect of the book you’d like to know more about—so if you have an opinion, comment, or question, just drop it here.

Meanwhile, feel free to pre-order the book. Or put a hold on it at your library. It’s all good.

#bookBirthday #essays #interview #novella #poems #publication #sheIsHere #shortFiction #zoomorphics