Tag: Cats

Categories
Animals Outdoors/Landscape Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Bird Sanctuary?

Bird Sanctuary?

Ink & Watercolor in 6×9 Aquabee sketchbook
To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes

Today after lunch I walked halfway around the lake beside my office with my boss and a work buddy. We were surprised to see a grey cat sound asleep in what looked like a cozy nest in a small tree alongside the lake. Lake Merritt is rich with avian wildlife, and is a sanctuary for migrating birds and many who live there year-round, including coots, comorants, ducks, egrets, way too many Canadian geese (constant hopscotching over big goose turds required), grebes, gulls, herons and tons of pigeons. There are also many feral cats and this one fits right in.

I thought we were going to be walking to the library on the gritty streets of downtown Oakland so didn’t carry my camera and missed getting a photo of this scene or another that would have made a great painting: a beautiful Hmong mother, grandmother and baby all dressed in bright colors sitting on a green park bench. I tried to memorize the cat in the tree scene so I could draw it when I got home, but we were walking too fast to “snap” a mental picture of the Hmong family.

Another co-worker came to work sick today with a “searing” sore throat and now I’m starting to feel like I’m catching a cold. Phooey. Actually my coughing started last night, so I guess can’t blame her germs. Time for some sleep and Vitamin C.

Categories
Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Fridge sitter

Busby on Fridge

Ink & watercolor in Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook

This is Busby’s favorite perch. He sits on top of the stereo speakers that are on top of the fridge, somehow flying up there via a leap onto the counter, then the microwave then the fridge, then the speakers. The speakers are separated so some of his belly is suspended between them. I tried to teach him not to jump on the counter, but teaching cats anything has always seemed pretty hopeless.

Today was another cat fun day. Sometime last night while I was sleeping Fiona (not pictured…this is Busby) stole a package of dried split peas off the kitchen counter, carried them under my bed (where she also stores other booty such as Q-tips and pushpins and my favorite Smart Wool socks) and ripped open the package, scattering piles of those fun little pea pellets everywhere. I vacuumed them up (have to remember to empty the vacuum bag) and the rat-a-tat-bam-bam-bam sound of them being sucked up scared Busby so much he went and hid most of the morning. He’s found a really good new hiding place — I searched the whole house three times and never found him.

I was working on finishing an oil painting today. I don’t know why I force myself to finish things that have no chance of being successful, but I do learn from the process and every now and then I manage to rescue a painting and make it work. In this case I’m getting the chance to learn how to exploit the brushstrokes and thick rich paint that show in oils instead of trying to make oil paintings flat and smooth and detailed like watercolor. It’s amost as hard a transition as starting to use white paint. It’s just really foreign after years of painting with watercolor.

Categories
Animals Drawing Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages

Busby “Buzz” Berkeley – Illustration Friday

Buzz

Pencil sketch/study for monotype. Aquabee 6×9 sketchbook.
(To enlarge, click image, select All Sizes)

I’d been planning to work on sketching my cat Busby, also known as Buzz, to prepare for doing a monoprint of him today so it was convenient that today’s Illustration Friday cue is “Buzz.” Here he is! My next step is to do the drawing again with brushpen and ink, trying to work out making it just black and white. I want to see how extreme I can take it — how few lines and shapes are needed. But that will be tomorrow because…

Tonight is the opening party for my brother-in-law Tim’s show of his photos about building (and burning) the temple at Burning Man (photos) last year. So it’s off to the Lucky JuJu Pinball Art Gallery in Alameda, CA to party instead of painting. Here’s one of Tim’s temple photos:

dscn2812.JPG

Photo by Tim Englert 

More on Buzz tomorrow…

Categories
Animals Photos

While I was online tonight….

Fiona's Q-Tips

I set aside tonight to try to catch up on visiting blogs, responding to email and reading this week’s Everyday Matters posts. While I was visiting Andrea and Andrea‘s blogs I noticed through the slightly open door to the bathroom that Fiona (my calico cat) was playing in the bathroom sink. I didn’t think that was too odd since she slept in the sink all the time as a kitten. When I got up to make some tea I discovered she had somehow opened the medicine cabinet door and pulled all the q-tips out of their little container and scattered them about in the sink. She loves to chew on q-tips and her other favorite bad thing is to get on my drawing table and pull pushpins out of my bulletin board and then play with them which really scares me.

This little mess was a perfect metaphor for my day, which was all about little frustrations and annoyances. I spent way too much time standing in line at the post office to mail a CD with files of some paintings to a London publisher who’d requested some images for a book on flower painting. Once I reached the counter and waited for the incompetent postal employee to sort out how it’s done, she determined I’d have to start all over with their packaging, not mine, a contact phone number and a form to fill out, which meant a trip upstairs to my office for the phone number and another wait in line.

Stupidly I had no pen or paper so couldn’t even sketch while waiting and instead just stood their anxiously since I should have been in my office working. Oh well. It eventually got sent and I stayed way late at work to make up the time. I would have sketched the Q-tips, but I really want to get caught up with computer stuff tonight.

Categories
Life in general Sketchbook Pages Still Life Watercolor

My little cow glass is broken

Broken cow glass

Watercolor in 5×5″ Hand Book Journal
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

I found this little glass at a thirft shop and really liked it. I’d been leaving it on the kitchen counter where it’s handy to grab for a quick glass of water. Yesterday when I came home from work I found it in the sink, chipped and cracked. I guess the kitties were investigating the counter and knocked it off. It makes me sad that I can’t drink out of it anymore. It was just the right size and shape. I like it too much to throw it away. I’ll just keep it in the studio to look at and enjoy.

I know it’s odd that to be so fond of a cheap little thrift shop glass the way other people might relish jewelry or other fancy things. That’s just how I am though–I get more pleasure from simple things than fancy ones–like the old wool blanket on my bed. It’s warm and cozy but long ago lost all its satin binding. It has several holes chewed on the edges from when I took care of my niece Sophie’s pet rat for a few days. We kept the rat in its cage in my sons’ room next to their guinea pigs. But the rat’s cage was too close to the bed and it pulled the blanket (which had been my grandmother’s) into the cage and chewed off some nice bedding material for himself (or herself, I forget which).

My sons grew up and moved on, but I still have the blanket and don’t mind the scalloped edges. The blanket keeps me warm and it’s nice to sleep covered with something that my grandmother once held in her arms as she folded it (and probably ironed it knowing her).

Categories
People Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Judith (and Fiona) in the Night Studio

Judith in the Night Studio

Ink drawing with watercolor Raffine 6×9 sketchbook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

Tonight my painting group came by for our usual Tuesday (or sometimes Wednesday) painting session. Judith offered to pose for me while she was working on a painting and she was a perfect model. She actually was an artist’s model back in her art school days. Fiona decided to pose too — she’s on the window seat behind Judith.

This was the last page in this notebook and even though I’ve complained about the Raffine sketchbook from time to time, I’ve come to like it in a funny way. Because I didn’t love it I could be really free about sketching in it, not caring if I “wasted” pages. That way of thinking has rubbed off on all my sketchbooks (I have half a dozen going at once so I can pick just the one I’m in the mood for or that’s the right size) so I’m treating them all as working tools rather than precious items of value on their own.

I’m amazed and happy that my energy has returned and I haven’t had any caffeine since last Thursday. I guess I’ve completed my caffeine detox and I’m back to myself again…or maybe it’s the wonderful rainy weather I love so much, or the finally waning full moon. Whatever it is, I’ll take it! After a good night’s sleep last night, a productive day at work doing things that were not easy, and our painting session tonight, I’m still feeling cheery and not tired. Yay!

Categories
Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages

New Kittie Tree: Great Customer Service

Ink in Raffine sketchbook
To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”

About a year and a half ago I bought a used kitty play structure for my new rescue kittens. Then they both came down with ringworm (probably from the shelter), which is very contagious and very hard to cure. I had to throw away everything they’d touched (including their play structure) that couldn’t be severely bleached. I had to isolate them for about three months, give them serious medicine that had to be specially compounded, bathe them in nasty smelling stuff, bleach every surface in the house they’d touched and every day vacuum and bleach every surface in their two rooms (spare bedroom/exercise room and bath). I had to wash my clothes after each visit to them in their isolation rooms. It was really sad having new kittens locked up like that so I spent as much time with them as I could. Finally they were declared cured and could return to the rest of the house.

I searched for another kitty tree like the one they loved. Nobody carried it around here anymore so I ordered it online about a year ago. Even though it was made by the same company, Green Duck, it wasn’t quite as sturdy as the original. A couple weeks ago I realized the top shelf was slipping and spinning on it’s pole and when the kitties jumped up on it, it kept swinging around and hitting the window. The whole top shelf was starting to tilt downhill and I could tell it would eventually fall off. I called the online merchant I bought it from and they said that Green Duck was no longer doing business with them; they said to call Green Duck directly.

Green Duck apologized and said they’d send me another one the next day (no questions asked about price, purchase date, shipping the behemoth, etc.). They were no longer making the original one so we selected this one as a replacement (and an upgrade) and it arrived two days later. This was the best customer service I’ve experienced in a very long time. They’re a great company and stand behind their products. As you can see from the drawing, Busby approves. I haven’t figured out what to do with the old one yet so I feel like a crazy cat woman now, with two kitty trees. (as if I wasn’t before!)

Categories
Flower Art Life in general Watercolor

Bouquet Play

sumi-bouquet

Watercolor and FW acrylic ink in 9×12 in. Aquabee sketchbook.
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes.”)

QUESTIONS:
1. Are the images on my site taking too long too load? I’ve been saving larger sizes to Flickr and putting their medium size here but they are nearly 200K. I used to keep images to around 60K.
2. Do you like being able to click to enlarge or is this size big enough?

Now back to the regular post….

Playing with watercolor and ink again… I painted the flowers loosely without drawing using Kremer Pigments watercolors and then used a sumi brush to apply the ink over top. When it was dry I added a bit of Winsor Violet to the irises on each side because I couldn’t get a good purple with the reds and blues in the Kremer watercolors.

3 notes from Jana’s World today:

1. It was a beautiful sunny day but I spent the whole day behind closed blinds (to keep the glare off my computer) in my office working.

2. On the way home, I was delighted by a parade of humanity exiting the BART train at downtown Berkeley: an aging bearded hippie folk singer in gold see-through vest and red pants, followed by two Tibetan Buddhist monks in saffron robes, a handsome young African-American guy decked out in expensive designer hip-hop apparel and electronic accessories, several Asian students with fully loaded book bags, a skinny pale white woman with dyed black dreadlocks piled on top of her head, an obese woman who could barely walk, a very muscular woman with a crewcut wearing a sleeveless shirt whose arms were covered with tattoos, a young Latina mom pushing a stroller in which sat a round-faced tot wearing what looked like an organza lavender prom dress that ballooned out around her. I have to draw this! (but too tired now)

3. My silly cat Fiona seems to have spent her day in the cereal/pasta cabinet. She shredded open a box of Special K and two packages of spaghetti noodles (but only the white ones–she didn’t bother with the whole wheat, which is good because I needed them for dinner.)

Categories
Animals Illustration Friday Sketchbook Pages

Illustration Friday: Trouble

Trouble

Digital art done in Painter
Click image to enlarge and select “All Sizes”

I immediately thought of my cat Fiona when I saw this week’s Illustration Friday cue: “Trouble.” She’s always getting into trouble: chewing on electric cords, wrestling with my socks until they’re in shreds, jumping on my head when I’m sleeping in the middle of the night, or walking across a painting and tracking wet paint everywhere…I could go on and on. So I decided to get even and give her a little trouble, even if it’s just in a picture. (But don’t worry, I have no cat door, no raccoons, and love little Fiona dearly, even though she is a naughty girl.)

I also thought of raccoons because I know how much trouble they can cause. My friend Susie had a family of them living in her attic, which was a terrible nightmare since they were were not at all house-trained and had no manners when it came to eating walls and other important stuff. If you’ve seen the cult documentary, Grey Gardens you know what raccoons can do to a house. I knew someone who had a pet raccoon when I was in college. It was really sweet, with the softest little leathery hands, but frequently tore the place apart, opening all the kitchen cabinets and feasting on their contents.

A technical note: Yippee! I’ve solved the Painter conversion problem. I bought a new monitor to hook up to my laptop and ran it through it’s color calibration program before painting. When I transferred the file to my desktop PC with Photoshop, the colors transferred correctly. I could see that the laptop monitor’s colors were lighter and duller, thus requiring me to use stronger brighter colors that, when transferred, were way too strong. The new LCD monitor can also be flipped to vertical (portrait) mode which is too cool! What a difference having a 20″ monitor instead of a tiny laptop monitor to draw with.

Categories
Animals Drawing Sketchbook Pages Watercolor

Blind Contour Friday: Spooky (Cat)

SPOOKY (Cat)

Blind Contour Friday has issued the cue for October: “Spooky.” I thought my spooky cats would be suitable subjects, though they barely sat still long enough to draw them. In case you think I’ve forgotten how to draw, a “Blind Contour Drawing” means that you draw without looking at your paper and you do not lift your pen from the paper. You follow the contour of the subject with your eyes and your pen at the same time, and if you have to backtrack or cross over to get back to the beginning you do it, all without lifting the pen. Then when you’re done drawing, you can look at your paper while you splash a little paint on it, just for more fun.

SPOOKY (Cat 2)

The cat in the top drawing is Busby and the bottom is Fiona, also known as “that spooky little kittie,” since she’s quite odd.

They’re both drawn with ink in a Raffine sketchbook and then painted with Kremer Pigments watercolors.