Benjamin

I drew this after my old friend Benjamin Black died. I based it on a photo which my husband took a few months before. As in the digital drawing of Eurekatous I did a while ago, I had to use grays instead of the real black of his fur, otherwise there would be little to see.

Forgive me for the self-indulgence, but I’ll add a few things I wrote in the days after he died:

I don’t know why I should grieve that Benjamin is gone already when we had almost a year – just two weeks short – of extra time with him. He was a good cat, a good friend, and this extra year included wonderful moments with him. I was so cheered to see him boldly demand tidbits of ham or turkey, hop in Edmund’s lap, climb on the bed and spend the nights there with us, bask in the sun.

I miss him head-butting me to get more pettings. I miss him demanding treats in his raucous meow, and follow us around because he liked to be with friends. I miss him enjoying being brushed into ecstatic insensibility. Watching him die was like trying to hold on to a stream with my bare hands.

Why am I still crying instead of rejoicing for that extra year?

Technical details: As most of my recent pieces, this drawing was made using MyPaint 0.8.2 on a Wacom Intuos3 4×5 tablet and stylus. If anyone cares, I used Ramón Miranda‘s brush set (it’s my favourite brush set to date).