My thought process for painting portraits

This second Christmas portrait was an experience. I've never wanted to take on a commission of a real person. Mostly because I know to do realism well, it requires longer time. I'm afraid my enthusiasm is a rather flakey friend and might not last more than 3 sittings on the same painting.

The scarier thing was, the commission was of a friend, Pierce, who happened to be like part mentor, part cool-comraderie-crude-comic-relief during my stop-motion filming stint. I was nervous to trust my own skills to be able to pull off an accurate portrait of him.

My first thoughts when I get requests are often
"Why do people think I can do this?!"
"Why do people put wads of money in my hand and trust that I will deliver?"
"I don't even trust myself."

Crazy right? But I honestly think that before I start a portrait.

Then I start it. And push myself. I do many, many drafts. I finally settle on one.

Inking is tedious but the least stressful.

I begin to paint and freak out multiple times, laying down the permanent washes.

A few days later I think I've wrecked it.

Near the end I truly feel I've ruined the portrait. I'll wail to Tim how stupid my painting is and how I want to give back the money the person has paid me. Tim sighs and says to me how I'm like this for every painting and it always turns out fine. And I say "No, but this time it's true!".

And then I peel myself off the floor and force myself to work on, adding the final touches...and finally I reach a point where I stand back and look at it and I genuinely feel "It's alright! PHEW!!!" and breath a sigh of relief.

I either have to start charging more and get an agent so that I can distance myself from the personal nature of each request, or I stop doing this as my work and get some other day job.

So how do I feel about this personal person portrait of Pierce and his cat Neville?

It helped that Liz, his partner who commissioned the portrait, was a gorgeous easy going client and had a good idea of what she wanted, and that it was a comical idea too.

I'm happiest with how the red curtains worked out. It was a lot harder to paint than it looks! Decievingly simple looking, but I didn't count the so many shades of red I had to replicate in order to make it look like real curtains and not just an abstract mass of flesh from hell (that was the point I was wailing to Tim, 'I've wrecked it!". The cat Neville was a breeze. He's got such a funny face don't you think?! And of Pierce, well I guess I'm my hardest critic as I'm still not sure I did him justice. I  know Liz loved how it turned out, so that's great.

This halfway copy on white actually looks pretty good! It was hard to paint around wisps of hair when I added the solid red curtains in, here it definately looks more natural. 

 

And this is what Pierce really looks like, and their cat Neville:

        

 I hope you're happy with the portrait Pierce, and know that I tried my bestest. x.

Christmas Portraits

Here's two more paintings that I couldn't show until post Christmas, as they were commissioned as surprise Christmas gifts.

The Schnauzer is the 'cousin' of little Jemima that I did for a lovely couple a few months ago. They came back to get one done for the parents in law's grey peppered version of the Schnauzer, Max. He was more older and stately than Jemima, so we came up with a similar on the couch, but reading a book, setting.

I didn't get to meet Max, but I got to see Jemima again when the dad came to pick up the photo, and then My Max met Jemima and peed all around the place in my workroom!!! The most embaressing thing was that at first I thought it was Jemima, as I assumed that a dog in a new place was reason for it to mark some territory. Little did I know that our good mannered Max, who never barks or pees in the house, especially never in his own home, was the one doing the peeing! As we found out when we turned around after cleaning up the first lot, to catch Max in the process of peeing by the side of my waste paper basket!!

A Wedding Oscar portrait

We went to a good friends' wedding a few weeks ago on Perth's river's edge at Heathcote Reserve. Although they're home is in Melbourne at the moment, they're from Perth and being a small animation/film world we happened to work and live in the same places from the freezing land of Tasmania at the Blue Rocket studio, to the stressful, crazy times at Melbourne's Ettamogah studio.

The day was gorgeous, which was perfect for one of the most giving, deserving (and cool) couples we know. It wasn't a large wedding, and records played on an old record player, while everyone helped themselves to glass bottles of drinks with stripey paper straws, and croquet and throw rings were set up on the grass for some mellow fun 'til the sun went down and dinner was served.

The bombaneries were the best I've seen, classic Penguin books! and they doubled as nameplates. The title that caught my eye at first instant, turned out to be mine. And so onto the subject of talking animals, whilst in Melbourne Tim and I remembered fondly meeting the bride and groom's cat "Oscar", who appeared to be a friendly and sweet layabout, but we were told he only acted that way when guests came over. More humourously was how at one point we all looked over to see Oscar lying on his back, limbs spreadeagled out like a starfish. His owners were slightly abashed and told him to mind his manners "Oscar!!! Do you mind?!". No he didn't mind at all, and he's quite a large layabout cat now. Since he couldn't come over to Perth to share with the bride and groom's marriage, this portrait helped to include him.

The Planking Beagle

This is a portrait I did a month ago for someone's birthday. The dog "Rufus" is a Beagle who's only a couple of years old. He has an odd quirk, that when a jacket was placed on him to keep him warm, he froze up instead and wouldn't do more than blink an eye. He could be picked up and placed on the table and would remain in a rigid position, stiff like a plank of wood.

Which brings me to think of that other famous beagle, Snoopy, who is jokingly dubbed the real, original planker if you remember the comics and that planking debacle earlier this year.

So this portrait is Rufus, wearing a jacket, and going Snoopy style.

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Schnauzer!

I'm doing another Schnauzer pet portraitre, below, those are all the drafts I done so far for the single painting.

And I also just finished painting a portrait of a big cat for some good friends, wokring on another cat for some other good friends, and a dog for another's upcoming surprise birthday present. I already drafted Carol's (of the Wet Nose Day winner) gorgeous Louis but will paint that after this month's stash.

Sounds like a lot doesn't it?

It is - by the way of "I have no time for anything else other than to drink water and make toast for lunch".

And it isn't a lot in the way of "I can't afford to eat anything else other than toast and water for lunch".

Non Pet Portraits for Halloween

 These paintings are large, darker (in mood but still humourous I hope), and not pets!

             

I joined a group Exhibit with a few other Perth artists, to show some original artwork at Little Creatures. We have four exhibitions spread througout the time 'til mid 2012. This first one is called "Bestiolas" being the greek word for 'little creatures'.

After doing a few initial 'arty' ideas for big paintings, I scrapped them and went with my pet portraits style, and decided to go with the feeling of 'beast', since this exhibition is over Halloween. And chose to do the Halloweeny animals, the ultimate black cat, a Panther, and an owl, although techinically not an owl, but a frogmouth, an albino Tawney Frogmouth. Both are some of my favourite animals that I'd never get to do as a pet portrait, because who has a panther or a tawney frogmouth as a pet? *.

The opening night was on Wednesday and it went fabulously with many people coming through and a packed out Little Creatures. I brought along Tim and my parents came too, and we managed to grab a table later into the night and had some great woodfired pizza and White Rabbit beer. 

If you're ever at Little Creatures in Fremantle over the rest of October or first half of November, look out for the poster as you enter the main eatery/pub entrance, and immediately to the right are stairs that lead up to the loft section, open to the public. The hidden wall is where all our art is hanging. Check it out. My portraits are MUCH better in real life. They are meant to be seen in a frame, coveredf in shiny glass on a wall. Not the same as a hand sized digitial picture on your computer screen!

My originals are not available for sale, but print editions (limited to 100) can be bought, which will be professionally giclee printed on beautiful expensive watercolour paper, it will look as great as the original. And part of the profit goes to the Oncology Unit in Perth.

*  > :(  Who else is as appalled as I am over that shooting of more than 18 great exotic cats and a wolf in America because a mentally unstable man was allowed to collect them in Ohio for his own personal zoo, only to abandon in suburbia, so that they had to be shot down and killed for the safety of people. For a Western nation, what selfish and irresponsible Laws they have over there.

Portrait of a Miniature Schnauzer

This is Jemima, an adorable Miniature Schnauzer who likes cushions (pulling then apart).
It's the latest pet portrait I painted over the last week, and I had the pleasure of meeting Jemima (and her lovely owners Steve and Alison) when I went to hand the portrait over to them on Friday.

Jemima was tiny, acrobatic, very vocal, and so cute in real life. I had met a Miniature Schnauzer once before, a little young black one too who in contrast was very quiet, gentle, and almost cat-like. I didn't realise there could be such a difference in personailty accross the same breed!

Jemima barked loudly and growled at me (in excitement I hope) and then would run up to me, paws on my knees, and affectionately lick my hand with her little tongue, before running off again and barking, wagging her little pointy tail. Her ears were large and upright like a mouse! Steve was glad I captured the quirk of her ears, as it was not the norm for the Schnauzer breed whose ears are meant to fold over.

Jemima was only two years old and sometimes slept on the couch in the picture, so the little spotty jumpsuit was a cute reflection of that. She was such a clever, happy little thing, seeming curious and alert, enjoying being around her 'pack' as I noted her food bowl was half eaten, unusual for a dog! and Steve and Alison said that she likes eating only when they eat.

Before I left, they showed me a couple of tricks Jemima could do, and she hilariously sat, turned-around and rolled over in a split second, anticipating the commands before they were even given. And there was a low couch indoors that she could shimmy under, her little paws shuffling and drumming on the floor at superspeed as she navigated around and out to retrieve a mouse toy.

Then Steve held up the portrait to a small blank wall in between a shelf and the dark brown wood fireplace with some red and black things on it, and I was taken aback at how perfect it looked. I was so happy to see how perfectly the portrait fitted into their home, and Steve mused that it reminded him of the quirky paintings on the wall in Wallace and Gromit. :) ! Stop-motion animation, Spooky Doll Kids, need I say more! It was one of the smallest, but happiest portraits I've done.

The many faces of Sophie

I can't stand to buy mass produced holiday season cards anymore because when I'm browsing the card isles, I always end up thinking, "I can do that!, I'm not going to pay $8 for something I can do myself", and then I buy myself a coffee with that money, and I usually don't end up making any card. So I guess store bought cards also equals convenience, and I still buy them.

But I always make my mum a card for Mothers day (and birthdays). She values home-made cards much more than a gift, and so I thought it's about time I go crazy with my niece Sophie's funny faces. That little thing at 6 months has so many interesting expressions. Unfortunately her punk hair has started to come down now, but her face is still so pouty and chubby. Look at her face, she's so amusing.

Cat and Rabbit in Oil complete

Our oil painting lessons have come to an end, and here's the second painting completed after another three weeks.

Mr Merks and I both tried to draw a Yoshitomo Nara inpired cat and rabbit (Yoshitomo Nara is my one of my favouritest artists) and I thought since we both draw cat and rabbit with a different lean to each other, it'd be cool if we drew each others to paint, so they would turn out looking more connected. So I sketched cat for Mr Merks to paint, and he sketched rabbit for me to paint.

I have given rabbit the top I was wearing again at the time. And oh my gosh, Mr Merks' painting reminds me of Christmas! Sugar frosted, mistletoe, cherry topped, snuggly knitted jumper Christmas in a Winter somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. Ahhhh happy place.

At the beginning of these oil painting classes, I felt that I wouldn't warm to oil painting because I knew it was messy and didn't like the idea that I couldn't water down or wash away with water easily, like I do with water colours. However as the weeks went on, I found that I never get a single bit of paint on me, or my bags, or anything. I can wear my best clothes and not worry. I fancy to say that I'm a really neat painter. And the best thing is, soap and water is enough to wash one's hands spotless afterwards (I thought turps was the only thing). I never knew.


Now that those important facts about oil painting has been cleared up, some other things I've found as the weeks went on, is that I now love the smell of oil and turps. I love the way I can pat the paint on like molding clay. I thought it would be slow, having to wait for the paint to dry before applying more, but in fact I found I can work pretty fast since you can just keep changing and moving the colours around to suit. And then because it's so thick, and dry, one can get so much control! Which suits me fine.


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Joey in a Jumper for Jo

 

And he was jumping too when we saw him get his jumper on. 

This is our good friend and accountant, Jo-Ann's little dog. When we met him, Jo showed us how he loves getting his sweater on. When he knows she's getting his pullover, he jumps up with his arms raised in the air like a little kid. 

This portrait was supposed to be for Jo's birthday, way back at the beginning of February. Well I did have it done a month ago, but Jo and I keep missing each other at life drawing so I haven't been able to surprise her with it, and now because it's so belated, I'm just going to go ahead and put it up here: 

Jo, I'll give it to you when we catch each other at life drawing, or when you give us our '10 tax back, whichever comes first!  xRosey.

Oil portraiture: Blythe doll Tiki.

I finally got some time to pay attention to the Blythe doll I bought last Christmas.

For the last six weeks MrMerks and I have been learning oil painting at the Fremantle Arts Centre with a great master painter and teacher Peter Walker (I learnt my watercolour painting there too 10 years ago!). After the initial step by step still life painting, we could choose our own subject to paint...and I decided to bring my Blythe along to paint a canvas portrait.

So after three sittings, Tada!

I've named my Blythe "Tiki", since she resides in the Southern hemisphere, and probably hung around New Zealand rather than Hawai. Aw. I love my blythe.

But I didn't like the stock clothes she came with so I painted the dress I was actually wearing one of the days, onto her. And I actually like the painting of her during week 2, better than the completed one with the fine detail (well as fine detail as one can get with a 1cm thick brush).

Little B has left the building.

Through the back door in fact.

The story of how Little B flew away accidentally, I was outside hanging up washing. Little B was sitting on the inside laundry door. Suddenly a gust of wind slammed the door with a BANG! which set Little B into a panicked flying frenzy round and round the laundry.

I went over to calm Little B down and reached for the door, crossing my mind "Little B will probably fly out"...But then I thought, "nah, it didn't fly out the other day for a whole 15 minutes of open door". Click here * for the times I tried to let Little B go...or just scroll to the next post.

So I opened the door...

And Little B flew out with a last hop on the top of my head and perched in a small bottle brush tree next to us. We were just looking at each other for a few seconds, then suddenly Little B flew high into a tree at the opposite end of the garden.

Little B had flown so fast and so deftly, I actually thought it was a wild honeyeater that had flown into the tree to join Little B. It took me a moment to realize, that it WAS Little B with it's distinct bent 'L' shaped tail, who had flown and honed in on a high branch, so perfect and so quick.

I was a little stunned Little B was actually outside with full strength. I called it's name, expecting it to fly back over, or at least chirp, but instead Little B took off.

And that New Holland Honeyeater came out of nowhere again, and gave chase. But this time, I watched as Little B shrieked back at the New Holland honeyeater, and stayed out of reach of it, dancing and hopping around all over the trees. The New Holland honeyeater couldn't catch Little B and finally Little B flew over our house and away to who knows where. For the whole day until night I kept a watch out for Little B and called out to it, probably a bit too much and annoyed the hell out of all my neighbours. But Little B didn't come back.

I was mixed with a feeling of happiness, seeing how strong Little B could fly, just as fast and well as any other Singing Honeyeater. And I was also sad that Little B left so quickly and finally, without looking back once. It was so tame a friendly just a moment ago.

Then again, I would only hope that when it's out there, it returns to being a real BIRD with all it's bird instincts. I don't like to think that if it got hungry it might land on random people's heads. To anyone else, would they realise the native honeyeater was tame? Would it cross their mind that it might have been handraised? Would people hit Little B if it tried to land on their head? And then what if it got hungry or thirsty, or being free outdoors was just a novelty and once it wore off, Little B wanted to come home? Could a honeyeater recognise a house from the outside if it spent all it's time on the inside?

 

When Little B was Baby B. 

Lunar Year of the Rabbit =:x

Happy Chinese New Year folks. Yay it's the Rabbit!

Although I'm Horse, with so many rabbits in my life, this Lunar Chinese year has got to be especially special and lucky for us all. This is my rabbit Alice. It was high time I did her portrait! She is now around 6 years old.

I painted Alice wearing an adaptation of garments by Alannah Hill and Zimmermann, two fine Australian fashion designers who I LOVE but can rarely afford! Unless it's off ebay or Melbourne's clearance outlets, and even then I can barely afford them. You can see the original Zimmermann dress that I spied, here on ebay:
It costs $262 second hand.

I should mention I have a bit of a problem with ebay. It's my vice.

I LOVE that it is a doorway into a whole world of second hand, pre-loved, normally expensive things that are often near new, and often less than a third of the retail prices. Sometimes even less than a quarter! Hello, fashionable recycling! I'm glad to be apart from the throwaway society.

But endless hours of window shopping and the ease of clicking "bid now" and the satisfaction of nabbing a sale. One could say it can turn into a little addiction. So I made it one of my resolutions this year to "spend $0 on ebay". It was great the first few weeks that I kept my resolve, but now it's broken.

I will make some new Lunar Rabbit Year's resolutions.
1.  No bidding on ebay this Lunar year.
2.  Do an animal portrait every week day for a year. (is that too crazy?)

Two More Dogs for Christmas

When I began doing these commissioned portraits, I remember saying to Tim "I hope I don't get any dogs, I'm not sure if I can draw them. I just want to do rabbits, guinea pigs, mice, and cats". But mostly, I've been painting one dog after another.

Here are the last two for the year. Both were commissions for Christmas presents and although I planned to get them done earlier, I was working on them right up til Christmas day. I knew both these dogs.

This Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, I never really liked him again after he bit my hand with a growl when I was trying to untangle him from his lead as Tim and I were giving him a car ride up from Manjimup to Perth one day. He might have beautiful, silky fur and a grand name, but he'll always be not the sharpest dog to me. I've seen him cocking his head from side to side when being talked to, and I've been told he seems to like listening to stories read aloud to him. It is amusing that he is an adult but still has lanky limbs, and sentient looking eyes. I tried to make him look pretty cute and smart still, if not in intelligence, in way of dressing.

"Gabby" the corgi was a grand old lady who passed away recently. Corgi's truly are very regal looking in the way they hold themselves, and Gabby really looked forward to and enjoyed her walks, so this is "Gabby on a Sunday Walk" in her Sunday Best clothes and walking stick. She was such a pleasure to paint, I love the colours I got to work with and her face was beautiful and elegant to draw.

And a Rabbit with a Milk Arrowroot

This rabbit portrait of "King Thumper" was commissioned by a classmate (I hadn't seen since highschool!) as a Christmas gift for her mother. Her mother had a special, grand, old rabbit (that my friend had bought for her mother when she first moved out of home) that lived to a mighty age of 15 years and just passed away a couple of months ago. He was a house rabbit, and was obviously well loved and cared for. The garden was cultured to be rabbit friendly with treats of mint and parsely planted round the place, but his favourite was Milk Arrowroot biscuits! The key to his long life? Good dental care! I (Wickett/Cookie/Alice) actually go to the same vet who is a vetinary dental specialist for small exotic animals, mostly rabbits and guinea pigs. Her clinic is even called "the Rabbit Shop".

He was such a beautiful portrait to do, I was especially excited to finally get a rabbit to draw. Don't you just want to reach out pat him? What an amazing coat of cuddly fur!

Maya (and her Guinea pigs)

A month ago I was asked by a few different friends who are now parents, if I'd paint kids? I thought my niche 'thing' with this portraitures business was going to be small pets (ideally rabbits, cats, and guinea pigs!). But I've been doing mostly dogs, and my Jamie brother has requested a fish even!

"Kids are like little animals, she's sort of like a little pet", my friend reasoned with me when she asked me a week later for the second time. She's one of my dear friends, and since she was serious about it, and trusting my skills enough to pay me already, I gave it a go.

I went to meet Maya and despite hearing only stories about Maya's cheek and how she drives her mum crazy, by the end of 2 hours of hanging around Maya there were two things that I came away with, playful and happy. So with reference photos I sketched up a detailed single large portrait of Maya in dressup (as her favourite thing to do of the moment) telling her pet guinea pig to "sing" (as that's what she ended up pretending when she held Alena while I was there). But after a week, I didn't feel that the portrait captured enough of Maya's spirit so I did four new sketches. All of them together painted a picture of Maya better and I couldn't choose one over another to use.

So this is what I ended up with. Not a portrait anymore, but some sort of customised, watercolour painted illustration? I called it "Rock with me! Walk with me! Sing for me! Take a photo of me, Maya!". It's the longest name I've given a painting, haha.


Oh, and the bee was a special request as "Maya the Bee" was a favourite cartoon of the parents when they were small, so now it was their nickname for Maya and so there HAD to be a bee in there. It fit perfectly as a decorative detail for the centre of the page.









So I guess I can now say, I can do "illustrative paintings" of children. It was not too difficult in the end and actually really natural to draw and paint. Thankyou to Lana and Edin, mother and father bee to Maya, for trusting me and giving me the chance to draw Maya!

Timday again

It was Tim's birthday the other day. A young 30-something. And something I didn't get around to show anyone last year, was this painting I did for him when he had his birthday in Melbourne. It's titled "Timday". Based off that Calvin and Hobbes scene where Calvin is standing on his chair cheering in his own day-dream 'Calvin Day' street parade for getting an A grade. It's got all (but one) of Tim's created film characters and a few of mine to make up the crowd. 

Excuse the reflection off the glass. I'll try and get a better photo later.

I wasn't able to top that present this year, but what I didn't do in handpainting, I made up with rocky road and lemon cheese cupcakes I bought at a Market of Original & Handcrafted held at UWA on the weekend. The cupcakes were so good we felt like we couldn't eat any cake for the rest of the month.

Hamish MacGregor

Great Scotty Dog! I painted tartan.

Last portrait, while I was in a department store sizing up the portrait to specially showcase the A3 cats, a lady who was there buying a photo frame looked over at my portrait and mused "Oh! isn't that lovely!...Do you paint dogs?". And a 15 minute conversation later, I had an appointment to do a meeting and portrait of her dog, a Scottish Terrier! I have always LOVED Scotty dogs, ever since reading May Gibbs' "Scotty in Gumnut Land" as a kid, and it is on the top of my list of what type of dog I'd get, if I ever got a dog. So I was thrilled to not only meet a Scottish Terrier, but to have one as my third (commissioned) portrait subject!

I did not know Scottish Terriers are quite large. Well they are still short, but their shoulders and head are incredibly sturdy and heavy, like a bull terrier in fact. This one in particular was overjoyed to meet me and kept pushing and nudging my legs with his head, and if I were a bit skinnier, I swear he would have nudged me right over he was so strong! The Scottish Terrier was bred to be able to survive in the highlands, which meant they are intelligent thinkers (as opposed to trainable intelligence like a sheepdog) where they can figure their way around things that may be unpredictable or changing. Interesting, I like them even more now! And I loved this one that I had to draw, he had a lot of spunk but also those cute, wide paws so shaggy they're like hoofs.

I was also happy and excited I was getting to do Tartan cloth. Yes, that's right, happy! I'm either a lover of detail, or a glutton for punishment.

The first Cats Portrait

This is what I've been working on for the last two weeks and it is proudly with the owner now. Presenting "Tochi" the terror, and "Georgie" the playful, insect-hunting, sook. It's a big portrait like the previous one, bigger, A3 size in fact! But unlike the previous portrait, the owner Seng was happy to leave Tochi and Georgie's portraiture entirely up to me, even keen to see what my visual interpretation would be like.

This is what I learnt about them. Tochi was named 'Tochi the terror' after a Japanese horror film character, because although extremely friendly and cute, he had extrememly sharp claws he loved using for both fighting other cats who trespassed into his backyard, and for chasing/scratching one's ankles and legs or arms in affection. He was an older cat, still very agile and spry, but also very relaxed and seemed to like just quietly sitting or lying around.

Georgie was a much younger adult, who still loved playing. She had a furry, loose tummy (that I was told often happens to female cats after they're neutured). She was very cautious, almost afraid of strangers like myself, but she was easily distracted by her fluorescent, yellow and pink feather toy, and spent a lot of her time stalking and chasing an earwig and other bugs, underneath a large, grassy plant while we sat outside with them. Seng told me she often hid and pounced on an unsuspecting Tochi as he walked passed, but Tochi would quickly hiss and dismiss her, not sharing her interest to playfight.


My usual turnaround SHOULD be a few days (if I get no interuption), one week at the most. I have been too careful and not trusting myself while doing this portrait since I had total free reign. I had multiple versions that I mulled over after I had already started on the one I was going with, and then there were moments where I believed I had ruined the painting. In the end the painting finished up great.

So if I just took out all the time where I was second guessing myself and being afraid of producing a bad picture before it was done, I would have came to the same great, finished painting, a week and a half earlier!

"I had the most amazing caricature of my two cats done by talented Perth artist and animator, Roseline Lau...She's captured the likeness and "personality" of the cats perfectly - Tochi's the older, distinguished gentleman who shows you who's boss by using his claws, while Georgie is playful in a slightly ditzy way...check out the ear wig in her insect collecting jar - what attention to detail!". Seng Mah, Nov. 2010

Wickett the punk

For all those with guinea pigs, feed them capsicum daily!

Apart from Olive, Wickett was one of the first cartoon portraits I painted, for the same reason of remembering how much personality the little creature had. I framed it and gave it to my mum, but I wasn't totally pleased with how it looked. Wickett was an abyssinian guinea pig, which meant his hair grew in different directions, making him so cute, because in particular, his hair grew backwards on a crest on his head like big punk.

So I did another version today as a wicked James Dean style punk (the vet clinic had misheard my mum and wrote down his name as "Wicked"). He did bully and push round Cookie (the other remaning guinea pig) a lot and since he died young, if he were a person I'm sure he would have had a diet of smoke and coke. Aw poor Wickett, r.i.p.

Footnote
Wickett was one of the guinea pigs that Mum and I 'adopted' from my brother and sister in law a few months back. Unfortunately after half a year, Wickett got pneumonia plus his teeth had grown bad from Vitamin C deficiency making his jaw tissue loose. He stopped eating and for two weeks I hand fed him twice a day with antibiotics, powdered vitamin C, and critical care food from the vet. It was middle of Winter and I never use a heater in the house, but for Wickett, I kept him in my work room with the heater on day and night. He seemed to get better a couple of times, but at the end of third week, he suddenly got worse and his breathing was so laboured and he looked so uncomfortable. 8 hours, or even 1 hour is WAY too much for one little guinea pig to be gasping for every breath. Mum and I were so sad when he died, he was such a funny, cute little thing, and I think it was so sad because he was not particularly old either.