My Painting Matches the Clouds

After spending days painting my kitty I looked up and noticed that I had chosen God’s color scheme. ❤️ Thank you, God, for making us creative people and for allowing us to appreciate your creativity.  

Wow.  The sky was sooo beautiful last night. It seemed like a verification that, yes indeed, I am doing exactly what God planned for me.

Wear Your Mask!

What is that crazy woman doing anyway with all these cats?’  Well, I’m glad you asked.  I am printing the daylights out of these masked cats because tomorrow I’m going to start giving them away! 

Yay - free art!  Keep an eye out for tomorrow and in the meantime, WEAR YOUR MASK!  This is an original print I made from a block that I carved.  Each one is different.

Which one do you like best? They definitely all have their own character - color means so much!

This last one is printed on color-changing shimmery paint.  Yummy!

And don’t forget, as we start opening up - keep your distance and stay healthy.  Wear that mask!

Quarantined Artist

More Art versus Artist photos. I love this painting because it’s of one of our favorite cats ever. She actually looked exactly like this, well, except for the fact that she wasn’t green... or see-through.  Anyway, you can find more of my paintings at https://www.etsy.com/shop/ColorCatStudios101?ref=search_shop_redirect. It’s a good thing to check out while we’re all in quarantine!

Most of my art deals in layers, color and texture.  I really do love this piece. :)

Humorous Painting

This quote makes me chuckle.  I think at some point every artist feels this way.  I popped the quote onto one of my sold paintings, which also makes me chuckle.  I named it ‘Big Furry Bird.’  Pretty sure THAT big, furry bird just wants to be friends. 🙂.

Photographing My Art

As photographing my paintings is so intense, I’ve been working on it myself with my timer.  Of all the photos I took today, I think I got only one good one.  The rest? Painting not square, painting upside down, oops - I turned it around and got my coat, my nose looks too big (well, it IS a proud family heritage!) too bright, stupid pose, stupid smile, on and ON! ANYWAY, I did this so you can see the size comparison.  Good things DO come in small packages! For sale.

This one came out pretty well, and the painting is square to the photograph.

Painting crooked....

Whoops... didn’t get to the chair in time...

Much too bright and really stupid pose - move camera!

Oh brother!  I reversed it!  (Nice coat, though!)

Okay, I GIVE UP!

Anyway, here is the painting once again so you can actually see the nice colors and details:

You can find my work at 

colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

Pretty baby!

Cat Painting, Part the Eighth

Well, this is now installment #8 in my creative steps toward finishing my cat painting.  Here we go!  The first picture shows the colors I chose for his eyes.  Previous to this I had a number of colors out on a test sheet and narrowed it down to exactly these.  Once I have the eyes finished, I note these exact colors in my planning notebook for future references in replication, cleaning, repair and posterity.

The second shot shows my setup, typical for a lot of my work, and I usually employ my handy dandy iPad.

The third shot shows my color choices for his nose. :)

The last shot shows me back to black and white with a tiny liner brush.  These long brushes are good for, well, long lines!  When you see I’m working this small, it shows that the end is in sight.

These are really just such beautiful colors, aren’t they?  Luscious.  Good enough to eat but I’ll refrain.

The little details I do with this brush will be the icing on the cake. Almost done!!  Yay!

Creative Steps #7, Painting the Cat

I think this is Creative Inspiration and Steps Installment #7.  If you’re interested, you can scroll down to the previous posts.

Don’t be afraid! You must be a brave soul to create!  You also have to have a vision.  There are stages in your work that CAN look downright scary, so it’s important to keep your end goal in mind. 

I wanted to do justice to his gorgeous green peepers so I knew I’d need a white background to reflect those colors. These four shots show my next stage, which is finally painting Lupino himself.  My color work is mostly done and I’m now going in only with black, white and a slow-dry medium.  

Yes, my studio looks messy.  Yes, it always looks that way, and yes, I know where everything is!  Several days of painting the cat, with important nights in between.  This gives me fresh eyes to come back and see things I had previously missed so I can get him just... right.  

But as for now we have to look at those terrifying, vacuous eyes.

Newest Animal Painting

Each Christmas I step back from all my other work and give myself a creative break.  This year I chose to do my baby, Lupino, and spent this entire month on him. Here’s a little sneak peek cutaway... the big reveal comes when I edit my 100-some photos. I chose to name him Lupus Regem, Latin for wolf king, as he looks like a wolf and is very regal. He also weighs in at just over 16 pounds!

Note the generous use of gold, blue and red; these are symbols of his royalty.  The Latin name gives a nod to the years I spent teaching our kids Latin and how much it has enriched our everyday lives. My plan is to reveal the mystery and walk you step by step through my process for this piece, so we’ll call this the first installment!

And remember, the first step toward your own painting is if you like my art.  I can paint pretty much anything you ask.  (Whew! That’s quite a claim, huh? Now I’m in trouble!)

I digress, but it does remind me of a time someone said, ‘Can you paint a ship on the ocean, and paint like Rembrandt?’  I said, ‘Sure, I can do that.’  After moaning and ‘why on earth did I say that-ing’ for about two weeks I got down to work and painted a GORGEOUS ship which I loved!  My patrons loved it as did everyone that saw it, in fact I had to paint a partner for it and sold that as well after it did a local tour of its own.

So, what’s the moral of the story?  Well, for me it means I should NEVER say I can paint like Rembrandt!  I think I’ll stick to painting like myself!

Cat Bird Painting

Coco Chanel quote on my painting.  So very true.  That big furry bird is not like the rest of them and this painting cracks me up every time I see it.

My Cat Painting

For this watchful cat I used our baby for inspiration as well as the Cheshire Cat.  Couldn’t resist that little quiet smile.  This one’s done mostly in bronzes and golds, and I’ve got gold behind a thin veneer of green and yellow paint for the eyes.  This makes the eyes glow like a cat’s in certain light.  Find him for sale along with a lot of other animal paintings at 

colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

Magnets, Posters and Art Cards

Brighten up your home with magnets, art cards and my mini-posters.  You don’t have to spend a mint to own cool art!  Lions and tigers and bears... oh my! colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

The original painting, which measured 24x30”, is sold, but was so popular I made mini-posters, magnets and postcards.  Check them and my other animals out on the website I noted above.  I also have bears, lions, wolves, owls, cats... :O ❤️