Friday Ketchup No. 3

Last week was bad for me and it carried over to early this week.

This was me last week. I knew something was wrong because I usually feel like this:

My face, eyes, nose, throat, neck - basically everything from neck up hurt. There was phlegm. Serious phlegm. In different colours too. Red, orange, green, yellow and I swear I saw blue once.

When I cough, my head and neck hurts. Like DOINK DOINK DOINK DOINK hurt. When I turn my head, it hurt like DOINK DOINK DOINK DOINK hurt.

So I kinda knew something was wrong.

Then it dawned on me.

This time the smog came from Myanmar and Thailand, I think. My neighbours burning papers and incense contributed as well. Plus the smokers... It's like smoke followed me everywhere I turned. Even in my own home.

Finally on Wednesday everything got better. I could turn my head without pain. And I could laugh without pain.

I'm starting to feel like normal again.

But I still can't bend my body like if I were walking and I see a $100 note on the ground, no siree. I keep walking because I can't bend over to pick up the money without passing out. And the phlegm is all clear now, tq.

I can draw a cat

When I was in my teens, I yearned to be a cartoonist. I had no training but I didn't think it was necessary. I learned by imitating the cartoons in the Sunday newspapers. I drew on the unlined pages of my Biology exercise books. I managed to fill 3 such books with my practice drawings before I realised later on in my 20's I just didn't have the goods. Below is a sample from my practice books.

I spent hours and hours on this obsession and I did this until I was 19. Imagine how I would have turned out if I had poured all that energy on my studies!

In my early 20's I spent a lot of time making greeting cards with my drawings. But I had huge insecurities about my inadequate drawings.

Finally in my late 20's I decided to enroll in a short course at YMCA. Guess what it was? Yep, cartoon drawing. I completed the course but left disillusioned as I felt the teacher's drawings were quite crappy. I mean, he was teaching me to draw!

I discovered while sewing my drawings on pouches I was pretty much satisfied with my kindergarten level of drawing. I mean, I am most drawn to childish drawings. If I were to upgrade to say, secondary school level of drawing, my drawings may become too realistic for my liking. Not that I'm capable of realistic style of drawing but you get what I'm saying.

Today I chanced upon a few videos on youtube teaching easy way to draw cats and I decided to give them a go just to see if I'll learn anything. I was quite selective and only chose the cats which a very young child could draw.

Here are my results. I drew the cats by following the instructions faithfully. My favourite is the first sitting cat based on a Youtube tute found here. The second sitting cat is from this site. It's more generic and closer to how I would draw my cats. The third cat - a walking cat is from this youtube tute found here.

After reviewing what I had learned from these tutes, I conclude that I already know how to draw a cat. Certainly I'm poor at some of the postures and I still dislike drawing limbs but you'll know it's a cat.

These are my cats. I like my cats to be simple without too many details. What do you think? In case you're wondering, I'm drawing cats for a future project. And it's not any cat I'm drawing. It's my ol' cat. Yes, I used to have a cat when I was a child. I don't have any photos of my ol' cat and I honestly can't really remember what it looked like. Anyway, I have to make my cat a lot meaner because my cat was a mean ol' sonofabitch. That I remember.

Son saw me drawing and offered to draw cats for me. He drew 2 cats - a girl cat and a boy cat. I like the boy cat more. Then I told him his cats were sexist and he laughed.

Last year hubs and I saw an episode of Shark Tank. If you're not familiar with this reality TV show, this is how it works. Real investors sit on a panel and selected entrepreneurs go on the show to seek investment for their business. In this episode, this guy appeared on the show to ask for 10k for a 25% stake in his company which is called I WANT TO DRAW A CAT FOR YOU. I'm not kidding. His whole business is centered on the owner, Steve, drawing cats for customers. And his drawings weren't even that awesome.

Here's the video of "I want to draw a cat for you" pitch. Amazingly, Mark Cuban, one of the investors on the panel agreed to invest but his offer was $25k for 33% stake. The last time I checked, I Want To Draw A Cat For You is still alive.