A Very Birchy Update

It's been almost a week since Birch had his dental surgery, and he's doing really well - he's eating crunchy food and everything.

Here he is an hour or two after we got home.

The day of his surgery, Birch ended up being at the vet for about nine hours - I dropped him off at 10am and picked him up at 7pm.  I think a lot of that time was just to allow him to recover from the anaesthetic afterward, though.  Surely the procedure itself couldn't have taken more than a few hours.

The vet who did the surgery was really great - he called me in the middle of the procedure just to let me know that he was halfway done and Birch was doing okay.  At that point, Birch had had three teeth pulled: two back teeth and one of his mighty fangs...

It's that fang, if you're curious.  Which you can't see in this "before" picture anyway.

...but that was just on the one side.  The vet said there would probably be more to do on the other side.

When I came to pick Birch up, the vet gave me a thorough explanation of why the teeth needed to be pulled, and a bunch of information about cat teeth in general.  Some people might be annoyed by this, but I like feeling like I know what's going on so I loved it*.  The vet also gave me a little bottle of liquid pain killer to squirt under Birch's tongue** if he seemed to be in discomfort...and then, at long last, he brought my baby boy out so I could take him home.

Oh, also...they saved the teeth for me. :D

I don't know why I took them home with me, but...yeah.

I guess the vet ended up pulling a fourth one after he called me..?  For some reason I don't specifically remember him telling me the total number of extractions.  At first I thought that tiny tooth was a fragment of the broken-looking one at the bottom there, but the pieces don't fit together so I guess the total comes to four.

Anyway, once we got home and I opened up the carrier, Birch jumped up on the couch for purrsnuggles pretty much immediately.  I knew that he's a resilient boy, but I was still surprised by how totally normal he seemed.  I mean, I left him with strange people all day - which I never do - and he was injected with knockout drugs and he surely must have woken up with confusion and mouth pain (also perhaps arm pain from the I.V. and throat pain from the tube they put down there).  I figured at the very least he'd need to hide under the bed for a while once we got home, but no!  He did sleep a lot (who could blame him?) but he did his sleeping out in the open, like on any other day.

And!  I'd been afraid that his face would look different after having his teeth pulled, like maybe kinda caved in or something...

Artist's rendering.

...But it doesn't.  Although - I hasten to add - I would still think he was beautiful no matter what.

Around bedtime I endeavoured to give Birch some of that liquid pain killer, hoping it would help him sleep better.  I think the process of getting the eyedropper into his mouth was more traumatizing than whatever pain he may have been in.  He hid under the bed until morning and I decided not to give him more pain killer unless he was really acting miserable.

From that point onward, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened.

*Lounge*lounge*lounge*

I mean, obviously I switched him from kibble to wet food for a few days.  And for a while after the surgery, he couldn't really meow; when he tried, all that came out was a hoarse little quack.  I mentioned this to a friend and she told me that animals (and people, too, I suppose) usually get a tube put down their throat during surgery, so maybe there was some irritation from that.  Also, sometimes Birch would randomly make a really disgusting horking sound and then snort/sneeze a bunch of times.  It pretty much seemed like he was moving snot (or...blood clots?) from one part of his head to another, but y'know what, it's probably just as well I don't know the details.  At any rate, all of that stuff seems to be over now.

I'm so proud of my brave boy. <3


*I did not love hearing that Birch and I will probably have to go through this again every few years because his teeth and gums basically suck.  But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

**You have no idea how badly I wanted to try putting it in his ear, instead.  Any mucous membrane oughta do it, right?

Caturday supplemental: it's almost time.

As you may know, my wonderful kitty Birch has been diagnosed with FIV (like HIV, but for cats) and also needs expensive dental work.  And what with me having no day job and living on my savings and all*, the expense represents a substantial chunk of what I have left.  I've been kind of freaking out.

A friend of mine reminded me that animal-related charities often have ways of helping people in situations like mine.  I contacted the rescue place where I originally got Birch and they kindly hooked me up with one of their veterinarians, who will do the dental stuff for me at a discount.  Instead of the $800+ that my regular vet quoted me, this one will do the job for $300-$500.  I booked Birch in for tomorrow morning and will continue selling $5 digital pet sketches to try to offset the cost.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to be giving Birch 1/4 teaspoon of yellow vitamin goo (to boost his immune system) plus an antibiotic pill (to help fight his painful gum infection) every 12 hours.  The vet said that both medicines have a pleasant taste and the pills are chewable, so there's a chance Birch might swallow it all straight-up without me having to trick or force him.  

LIES.

And then...

So then I started smushing his pill up and mixing that and the goo into some wet food (which he usually only gets on his birthday Birchday).  I called this dish Ackbar Surprise, after Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars.  

Sadly, after a few days Birch got wise to my shenanigans and his Ackbar Surprise would just sit there all day getting crusty.

If Birch could detect trace amounts of powdered medicine stirred into stanky meat byproducts, there's no way he'd be fooled by pill pockets.  The Boy and I were just going to have to shove each pill directly into his mouth.  If I'd known it would come to that, I'd've asked the vet if the antibiotics came in suppository form instead.  Birch's back door isn't ringed with needle-sharp teeth (as far as I know).  Oh well, too late now.

For a while I thought I'd come up with the perfect solution: putting a pill between my lips and blowing it directly into Birch's mouth.  I'm always kissing him on the face so I figured he'd feel pretty comfortable with this.  As comfortable as could be expected, anyway.

The first time I tried it, it worked perfectly.  It was over in five seconds and Birch had no idea wtf had just happened.  I felt like a ninja.  Unfortunately, he's a pretty bright kitty with a decent memory, so the mouth-ninja technique never worked again.  I won't immortalize what happened next with cutesy pictures.  It was horrible.  The Boy and I could barely manage to get a pill into the damn cat even with both of us holding him down - and even when we got one in his mouth, he'd repeatedly spit it out again.  Also, it turns out Birch drools when he's really stressed out.  Like, copiously.  Strings hanging down.  Choking sounds.  The pill went in and out of his saliva-flooded mouth so many times that it began to dissolve and we had to unwrap another one.  His fur was soaked with spit from his chin down to his chest.

When it was finally over, Birch hid under the bed.  After a couple of hours, I went into the bedroom to check on him.  The bed has stuff stored underneath it, so you can't just look under the edge and see him; you have to lift a corner of the mattress and peer through the slats to see which crevice he's hiding in.  I was peering around the foot of the bed, calling Birch's name, and suddenly heard him making those spit-choking sounds from up near the head of the bed.  He must have thought I was coming in to do something else horrible to him, and started fear-drooling.  I lifted that end of the mattress and found him huddled in a ball with his fur all soaked again.  He looked tiny and miserable and refused to make eye contact.  He's never, ever acted like that before; never been afraid of me, never hid from me, never held a grudge against me.

I curled up on the bed and cried for a pretty long time.  Eventually, The Boy convinced me to come out to the living room and let Birch chill by himself for a while.  It took til 5am for Birch to forgive me - I woke to find him climbing up onto the bed to spoon with me (usually he assumes his place as The Littlest Spoon right when we're going to bed).  By the time I got up for the day, he seemed pretty much back to normal.

I freely admit that today I said "fuck it" and didn't even try to give him his meds.  Apparently the vet has a $50 injection Birch can take instead (one needle and it's the equivalent of him taking his pills for a week or something), and can I just say, it is more than worth it not to have to go through a trauma like last night again.  Also, I wanted Birch to have a nice final-day-before-surgery** with me...just in case.  It's not common for a cat (or dog or human) to have a bad reaction to general anaesthetic and die, but it does happen, and this has been weighing on my mind.  So I gave Birch wet food with no medicine hidden in it, and I've been hugging and petting him a lot and telling him how much I love him.

So yeah.  Tomorrow Birch gets his teeth cleaned, and probably at least one tooth extracted.  After he recovers from that, his mouth will finally be un-sore for the first time in at least a year.  So that's happy news!

I just have to hold myself together until I pick him up at 6pm.

*I'm not really making a profit on the art yet.  Soon, I think.  But not yet.

**I count this dental work as "surgery" because he'll have to be put completely under while they do it.  And they'll very likely be pulling at least one tooth, so he's gonna be sore afterward.

A Very Special Caturday Post - $5 Pet Sketches!

I just took Birch to the vet for his annual check-up.  He tested positive for FIV - feline immunodeficiency virus.  Basically, he has cat-AIDS.

At last year's check-up, they told me Birch had tartar buildup on his teeth and that his gums were all swollen and red.  They recommended I get Birch's teeth cleaned  (a veterinary procedure that requires them to knock him right out with anaesthetic) but said I might be able to avoid the expense by giving him special crunchy cat food designed to bust off all that tartar.  So I've been sprinkling a handful of "crunchies" on his food every day for the past year.

Unfortunately, this time around the vet said his gums were still inflamed...and that this might indicate an immune system issue keeping him from fighting off the infection.  She recommended I get him tested for FIV and feline leukemia.  She also said that I need to get his teeth cleaned, and that this will cost a minimum of $800.  If they find a lot of damage once they get in there, they might have to pull some or all of his teeth(!) and that will cost more.

The next day, the results of the blood test came in: Birch is FIV+ (but no leukemia, thank god!).  The vet prescribed a two-week course of antibiotics to help him fight the gum infection, and also a tube of this weird vitamin supplement gel he's supposed to take twice a day to boost his immune system.  I think she said I should give him the gel stuff every day for the rest of his life, but it's possible I misheard her due to being shaken up by the bad news.  I was in a bit of a haze that morning.

So, to recap: Birch's mouth has been hurting for the past year or more(!) and he can't get better without expensive medicine and dental treatment.  Also, although he otherwise seems totally healthy and normal right now, he has an immune deficiency: just like a human with AIDS, he's at risk of getting really, really sick if he so much as catches the sniffles. Luckily, Birch is an indoor kitty so he's not likely to be exposed to cat-colds or cat-flus - but I'm still anticipating that in the future he'll need medicine more often than a cat without immune issues.

I'm feeling sad.  And freaked out.  And I'm still jobless and living off my savings, so all of this is a big financial strain, too - which is why I am now offering custom digital pet sketches in my Artfire store for just $5 each.  You send me a good clear pet photo, I "cartoonify" that sweet li'l face and email you the result. Here are some examples:

Merle!

Penelopy!

You could use your custom sketch as a Facebook profile pic or a user icon on your blog!  You could print it out and put it in a frame!  You could use a site like Zazzle.com to put your custom sketch on a t-shirt, coffee mug, greeting card, etc.!  As long as you're not making money off the image, I invite you to do whatever you want with it.  IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES SRSLY.

I've gotten about 14 orders within the first two days of this project, thanks to some wonderful people sharing the link on Facebook and Twitter.  Let's keep that momentum going!  Please share this link with all the pet lovers in your life: http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/product_view/4958676 or submit it to Reddit or other, um, big...information-sharing...thingies (I'm kind of clueless about that stuff, as you can probably tell).

Here's some of the feedback I've gotten from my pet sketch customers:


-Two thumbs up from me! I sent two photos and quickly received two very nicely drawn pieces of art (which I will now affix to various household items such as mugs and coasters).

-Wow, that was fast! LOVE them!


-My cat picture turned out amazing!  I'm gonna print it on a tote bag so I can take him with me everywhere I go. :)


Needless to say, any purchase from my Artfire store will help my financial situation, so if you're not into pets but you like something else I'm selling, now would be an excellent time to buy.  Just sayin'.

I'm gonna go hug my cat now.

I bet Da Vinci wanted to bang the Mona Lisa.

I've been feeling kinda draggy and fatigued for a while - like to the point where I'm wondering if my thyroid's gone wonky and I'm planning on seeing a doctor - but today I managed to power through my draggy feelings and my whole fear-of-failure thing and paint a new sexy merman.  Here are a couple of "progress shots" for those of you who are into that sort of thing:

...and here's the finished painting...

...and here's a close-up view of his face and torso 'cause I'm pleased with how they turned out.  Do you like his tattoo sleeve with the koi on it?  Kind of thematically appropriate, yes?

I find myself really, really wishing this merman was real so he could lounge around in my bathtub giving me this exact come-hither look.  And then I'd climb in with him and hijinks would ensue.  I think these thoughts might mean I'm either into bestiality, intensely egocentric, or both...but I don't care.  The painting is hot.

Stay tuned 'cause with any luck I'll have more hot mermen to show you soon!

Adventures in Modelling, Part II

In the few figure drawing classes I'd attended back in the day, the model did about a zillion poses ranging from thirty seconds in length to maybe ten minutes - the idea was that you had to draw the person fast, before they changed position, and this forced you to develop an eye for proportion and gesture.  With a thirty-second pose, there was no time to get all fiddly over details; you just scribbled down the shape of their body as best you could.  Classes like these happened one or two nights a week for six or eight weeks.

The class I just modelled for was different.  It was an intensive week-long course where each student would end up with just one super-detailed drawing; my job was to sit in the exact same position the entire time. This is definitely not most people's idea of a good time, but I thought it sounded great!  You guys, I spend like half my life sitting around naked!  Nobody is better prepared for this job than I am!

Witness my intensive at-home training regime!

But seriously, I have an insane competitive streak and a flare for self-discipline, so I was totally looking forward to the challenge of holding perfectly still.  I would be the most motionless art model ever.  I'd be like a statue!  A squishy, sweaty statue!

On Monday afternoon I showed up to the classroom a bit early, as instructor John Viljoen had requested, so we could decide on a pose before the students got there - something that I felt I could maintain for long periods without getting sore.  I decided to just sit in the chair with my feet planted on the floor, my hands resting on my thighs, and my head more-or-less facing forward.  John marked off where my feet would go and I tried my best to memorize the exact position of my head, back, and hands so my pose would be as consistent as possible.

Then I changed out of my street clothes and into a robe, and waited for my cue.

Like I said before, figure drawing classes are very analytical...the artists tend to think of the body as just a collection of curves and angles to draw, same as anything else.  I sat on my pedestal and tried to think of myself as a bowl of fruit or a Ming vase instead of a publicly naked person.  It didn't take too long to get used to it.

Holding the pose was just as fun and challenging as I thought it would be...it was interesting to me to play around inside my head and think of different ways of keeping still and relaxed.  Mostly I imagined that my body didn't exist anymore, or was made of rock or wood or metal, and let my mind wander.  During the second or third posing session on Day One (John gave me breaks every twenty minutes or so) I actually fell asleep for a few minutes with my eyes open - I'd been so nervous the night before that I hadn't slept very well.

Thankfully, I did not twitch or drool.

Here are some other selected moments from my week of posing:

Sometimes during the breaks I'd wander around checking out people's work.

TWO different students told me this! Squeeeeeeee!!!!!!

On Wednesday or Thursday the temperature outside hit 37 degrees celsius.

John always made sure I was comfortable, every step of the way.  I couldn't have asked for a better experience!

I never once asked to take a break early (although I could have; John was very clear that I could cry "uncle" at any time), because staying completely motionless until told to move was the name of the game, and I was out to win.  The occasional stiffness and pain became something to fight and conquer - it was a way of keeping things interesting.  If posing were easy, it'd be boring.

And you guys!  At the end of the week, I had become art!

And also?  I got my first paycheque in about fifteen months!

And that's the story of my first gig as an art model.  I never thought I'd stumble across a whole new career path this late in life - something I love and feel like I'm really good at - but there you have it!  Turns out I'm a total prodigy at holding really really still. :D

Now: everyone go check out John's website!  Especially his incredible portraits!  Awesome, right?

***

A week from now - Sunday, July 29th - I'm gonna be selling original paintings, greeting cards, and other quirky artsy goodies in Kensington Market as part of their Pedestrian Sundays event. I'll be on Augusta Avenue between Dundas Street West and Wales Avenue.  If you're in Toronto, you should totally come!

Adventures in Modelling, Part I

If you've been reading this blog on a regular basis, you are no doubt aware that I quit a stable, steady, full-time office job over a year ago and have been living off my savings (and a slow trickle of money from selling my art) ever since.  I've been talking about finding a new job for a while - something part-time, so I still have lots of time to paint - but I hadn't really found anything I thought I'd like.  I still have enough savings left that I can afford to be picky, so I've been taking my time trying to figure out what I really want to do.

And then about two months ago it hit me: I should totally model for figure drawing classes!


Why in the hell - you may ask - would someone with shyness and anxiety issues ever voluntarily be naked in a room full of people?


Well, here's the thing about figure drawing classes: they're not about judging the model's body, just seeing it - analyzing the body's curves and angles and light and shadow so you can accurately capture its form on paper.  I've taken a few of these classes in my day and the models were very much presented as "here is a human body for you to draw" (not "hey look, everyone!  It's a naked person!  WOOOOOO!!!!!") and the models were just regular people of all shapes and sizes.  And there are always a lot of rules to make sure the models feel respected and safe, like you have to refer to body parts by their official names ("breasts," not "funbags") and nobody but the instructor is allowed to speak to the model while they're posing.  So yeah, people would be looking at me, but they'd be on their very best behaviour and I wouldn't have to interact with them unless I felt like it.  Try getting that in a retail job!  


Plus, I love that I'd be helping people to understand human anatomy, just like The Boy (and all those figure models from days of yore) did for me; it feels like good karma.  And it would be so great for my work life and life-life to finally be aligned - everything dedicated to art.  No more awkward balancing act of Real Me vs. Corporate Me.


So, my decision was made: I would pursue part-time work as an artists' model.  I would pursue the fuck out of it.  I emailed pretty much every art school within commuting distance of my house and said I was available to model if they needed someone (I didn't tell you guys at the time because I wanted to wait until something actually happened) and, long story short, someone finally replied!  I just finished a week-long modelling job!  And...I really, really liked it!


TO BE CONTINUED...

Some recent paintings.

I've finished a couple of paintings over the last month or two, and I just realized I forgot to post 'em here.  So, strap yourself in and prepare for some eye candy!

I thought I'd let you guys have a rare look at a work in progress.  I feel weirdly exposed showing you a raw half-finished painting, but it's also kind of cool to see all that semi-realistic detail fading away to solid blocks of colour.  Or at least, I think it's cool.  Maybe you will, too.

So anyway, here's a picture I took midway through my most recent painting - a shark/merman/businessman type guy that I finished mere hours ago.

I'm sure you're probably heartbroken by the lack of abdominal muscles.  Don't worry, he gets them eventually!  Tons and tons of them, actually.  I just saved them for last because they're my favourite bit to paint.  It's like the dude's face, arms and tail are my "veggies" and once I've finished those, I get to reward myself with a big ol' sixpack of "dessert."

Yeah, that's right, I'm objectifying this hot corporate merman.  I'm objectifying the shit out of him.  And I won't apologize. :D

And here he is all finished up, abs and all.  Plus I added a tie.  It amuses me to imagine that a) the ocean floor has office buildings and b) the mer-people working in these buildings go about their business naked except for one small concession to professionalism like a tie or maybe a wristwatch.

Here's a painting of a different kind of ocean humanoid, finished a little over a week ago.  I got to wondering why mermaids are always part fish rather than some other sea creature, and it suddenly struck me that a jellyfish "bell" looks kind of like those gothic lolita tutus the kids wear.  And so I painted this:

Funny story: when The Boy was taking reference photos of me for this one, he felt that I was being too stiff (that would be because I hate having my picture taken).  "You're a jellyfish!" he yelled at me.  "Swirl!  Swirl!"  So there are like forty pictures of me standing in the front hall in a corset while flailing my arms around over my head.  After all of that, I still ended up going with the pose I'd first pictured in my head - a sort of ballerina-ish "look at my pretty skirt" pose - but the version The Boy took after all the flailing did look much more relaxed and naural than the initial attempt, so all that swirling must have helped.

And finally, here's something completely different: Star Trek fan art!  I finished Pin-Up Spock ages ago and posted him on my Facebook page but totally forgot to show him off here on my blog:

I think my favourite part of this painting is the subtle little glimpse of Vulcan nutsack.  Either that, or the fact that I bulked up the arms and legs a tad from the original photo (which The Boy posed for) because I don't envision Spock being quite that slender.  Yeah, you read that right: The Boy is even thinner, somehow, than what you see here.  I'm gonna start calling him my Trophy Waif. 

FYI I was going to add the caption "This undergarment is highly illogical" to this painting but there wasn't room.  That's totally what this painting is about, though: sexy almost-naked Spock going "WTF?  This g-string gives me neither coverage nor support."

So...who wants me to paint the back view? :D

Oh, also, a few days ago I finished a painting of post-apocalyptic monsters falling in love.  But I haven't taken any pictures of that one yet so I'll save it for next time.

I hope you guys liked these paintings!  I'm actually hoping to make the Spock one part of a series...preferably a series of four, so I can easily convert it into sets of magnets or postcards.  But what should the other three paintings be?  More Spock?  Or each a different hot young Star Trek dude?  Tell me what you think in the comments, you lustful nerdlings, you!