The Bilerico Project | Daily experiments in LGBTQ

Pop Star on Ice, a feature film documentary about Olympic ice skater Johnny Weir, recently started screening at festivals around the country. Even though ice skating seems unseasonal as we turn towards summer, I found myself thinking of Weir, who seems to have some fans around here, judging from the comments on Patricia's post about him, Adam Lambert, and Lady Gaga.

Also with fans around here are the gay guinea pigs of Uncle Bobby's Wedding, a wonderful children's book featuring a nuptially inclined pair. What does one have to do with the other, given that I've never seen a guinea pig in ice skates?

It turns out that Uncle Bobby author/illustrator Sarah Brannen made a name for herself with photographs and watercolors of ice skaters long before she turned to furry rodents.

Brannen is a regular contributor to Skating Magazine, and writes and contributes photographs to a regular column on Ice Network, along with 2006 Junior World Champion pair skater Drew Meekins. One of Brannen's drawings is in the collection of the World Figure Skating Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

She kindly agreed to let me share a few thumbnails of her pictures of Weir. (They are not free for use, but the watercolors are for sale. More after the jump.)

Click the images to view the full ones - and more - at her site. (Images here are not only small, but heavily cropped.)

And if the passing reference to Adam Lambert earlier wasn't enough, here's more: One of Brannen and Meekin's recent columns for Ice Network explores Lambert's ties to the world of figure skating.

You should also read their other columns if you have an interest in either skating and/or Weir. In one, for example, they give us the tidbit that, "His Korean fan group, who call themselves the Hyenas, have given him a Korean nickname: Wee John-he. A fan told us the name means 'Your existence itself is a joy to us.'"