An Artist’s Bookshelf

A little corner of our home featuring some of my art books for your perusing pleasure. And yes, I ADORE gnomes!

Comparing Acrylic to Watercolor

Do you prefer one over the other?

First painting:  Acrylic

Second painting:  Watercolor and ink

For me watercolors tend to be more ‘free.’ I like to quickly draw, quickly paint and have it be a little crazy.  

With acrylics I get a little pickier and can spend a LOT of time on them.  You can see that the BEGGAR’S face is detailed, but the farther you get from his face, the wilder it gets.  That’s simply my style, and helps you focus on what’s important instead of, say, his tail.  So... which do you like better? :)

Cat Print Giveaway Contest

You can join in my contest to get yourself a mask-wearing cat!

Go to Instagram and look me up as Color_Cat_Cindy and do the following:

I am giving away 20 original Masked Cat Prints! To get one:

1 - Go to my website, www.colorcatstudios101.etsy.com and choose your favorite piece of art

2 - Share this post and:

  a. Name your favorite art piece from my website

  c. Mention me in your comments (so I can keep track)

  d. I’ll add one entry for each share, and you’ll get an extra entry for each friend mentioned that also follows the above steps. You can share each day until May 31.

Contest closes on May 31.  At that time I will draw the 20 lucky ones.  Winners will be announced June 1.  Good luck!!

These are so lovely - I adore them! I carved the cat out of a linoleum block and have

been very busy print making!  Which one is your favorite?

Online Art Teacher

As long as we’re home, I might as well include you guys just a bit in my online art classes:

Japan is full of art! It’s not only in museums and galleries but right under your feet in the streets!  Aren’t they GORGEOUS???  My favorite is definitely the face.  And if anyone can figure out what that carwash looking one is, please let me know!

In the 80s someone came up with the idea of beautiful art on manhole covers to raise awareness and help pay for costly sewer projects.  Each city had art competitions for designs.  The designs usually speak about that which makes the city famous, for example if they make a certain product there or are famous for whale sitings.

The idea took off and soon cities were competing with each other for the best designs! Now there are manholes all over Japan and they are encouraging tourists and travelers to go to certain places to find special manholes!  Japan has been hard hit in the past years by acts of nature and these regions are creating special manholes to encourage tourists to come.  This will help with the rebuilding of these areas.

Even Pokemon has gotten into the game to help with disaster areas.  They want to encourage tourists to go see them.  Think about it… how could those Pokemon manhole covers help those places make money so they can rebuild?  (I wish WE had such pretty manhole covers!). They’re a delight, aren’t they? :)

Society6 Art for Sale

Here are three of the many images I have on phone cases and many other products at Society6. The two on the outside are my paint pours and the inside phone case is a woodblock that I carved which I use to make prints. Cool, huh? :)

You can find them here:

Color Cat Studios at Society6

Indigo Fantasy

If you have to be home it’d sure be nice to stare at something gorgeous, huh?

I finally got this painting posted for sale now on my website,

ColorCatStudios101 at Etsy

 I LOVE IT!  I kept it super sketchy for movement and glazed it in layers and layers of deep blues and violets.  Because of the glazing it takes on a glowing, stained glass appearance in person.  The colors are super hard to capture but it’s a combination of all these put together. 

This one, for example, is far too purple, and has too much light shining on it...

This one’s nice...

The many layers of glazing make this glow like a stained glass window, one color beneath another. ❤️ 

Another closeup...

 $700.00. There’s a lot more info on my website and I also give studio tours - and free gifts with each tour!  Just ask!

Finished Painting - Hint!

Today I’m celebrating the completion of a new painting!  Yay!! I can’t show it yet but tomorrow I’ll work on photos to reveal it tomorrow evening.  What you have HERE is a hint as to the color scheme.  So happy! #stayahome #quarantinelife

Cool, huh? Some of my favorite watercolors below...

This paint is SOOOO AWESOME!

This last pic is an Artist Trading Card (ATC) If any of you trade ATCs, let me know!j

This particular one is a ‘swatch card’ of some of my handmade watercolor paints from Indigo Arts on Etsy.  Love her paints!

An Artist Has Needs Too!

Wow!  You have no idea how happy I am that I found gloves!!!  Trust me, artists need gloves for safety too.  Stay healthy, friends. #covid #quarantine

Summer Art Classes

This summer I’ll be teaching metal embossing - oh, I mean SOMEDAY when we can actually touch people again.  This piece is beat up because I toss it in boxes and carry it places to use as a sample when I demo but I like it!  Anyway, here are four photos so you can see how it looks in differing light.  The copper is stained with blues, violets and magentas and something dark.  Anyway, we have that to look forward to! Message me if you’re interested in a fun class and I’ll put you on my email list.  Adults and kids alike love this class.  That way I can send out when I get dates set.

Metal embossing is one of the techniques that turns out beautifully even if the student is not an artist.  I feel it’s one of the most relaxing of mediums and you could positively forget yourself to the point that you drool.  Well, I wouldn’t, but you probably would. ;)

A Creative’s Outdoor Work

As for me, I LOVE staying home.  Today was pot painting day.  Looks like this year’s colors are yellow and blue!  As long as we’re home we might as well be productive.  What are YOU doing?  And yes, I painted these with leaves and then filled them with plants.  It was such a nice day to be outside.

Aren’t these so pretty? :). Here’s how I did it...

Starting to spread them around the yard...

And here’s the dirty truth...

Holographic Stickers

Well, as long as you have to stay home you might as well check out my holograph stickers.  Did I mention them?  Find them at

Color Cat Studios101 at Etsy

 and I’ll pop them in the mail for you.  FUN MAIL - WOW!

With a playing card so you can judge their size...

Just plain gorgeous.  The color shifts continually as you move it.

Studio Artist, Paintbrushes

The dirty truth.  My brushes may LOOK dirty here, but in reality they’re actually quite clean, thank you.  I don’t care a lot about the handles and paint dries on them anyway while I’m painting but the bristles are another story.  I may even be a little anal about brushes.  If you see anything that looks dirty in my bristles it’s not paint but a brush cleaner and preservative. I thoroughly clean the brushes, then load them with ‘The Master’s Brush Cleaner and Preservative.’ I’ll let them dry and leave them like this until I use them again, then I just wash them out.  Good stuff.  And at the price of good paint brushes, well worth the price.  And... do you see a couple rubbery-tipped ‘brushes?’ They’re for drawing into wet paint. :)

An Artist’s Supplies

Black, silver and white flatlay.  Last night I was waay too tired to be able to create art, but I’m a firm believer in doing the work.  So, even though I was tired, I went into my studio.  Since I’ve been working on a pair of paintings which are black, white and silver, I decided to do a flatlay of art supplies in those ‘colors.’  The simple act of putting these together gave me all kinds of ideas for those two in-progress paintings and I’m sure they will be better for it.  There you have it... one more way to get ‘er done.

Now, my supplies... many of my ‘brushes’ are rubber tipped.  I use these A LOT to draw into wet paint.  My handy dandy SOG, which I use just about every day of my life... the four cards are actually playing cards which I transformed into Artist Trading Cards, which I will trade card for card with other artists.  Fingernail polish... well, I TRY to keep my nails clean and paint-free.  Okay, it doesn’t work, but I try.  Umm.... oh... my lovely pot of Golden’s silver paint.  The silver/black ink is super cool and my Molotow chrome pens are peerless when it comes to shiny silver.  And then there are my Pitt pens and one lonely Blackwing pencil, the bedrock of a whole lot of my work.  There you have it!  Art stuff!  Oh, and my phone... oh... well,

Homeschool Art Classes

These print making days have turned out to be really fun for boy my students and myself.  LOVE making prints!

As  you can see here, some of my printing plates are repeated patterns.  Their assignment is to brainstorm with thumbnails for their own repeated patterns. Can’t wait to see what the students design!

I teach homeschool students ages 9-18 in two locations: www.hisclasses.org and www.ttcclasses.com.  I don’t take students mid-year but our schedule for 2020-2021 will be up around the end of April. Here are the links:

The Training Center Classes

HIS Classes

Society6 Artist

Did you KNOW?  All wall art at Society6 is 40% off for Presidents’ Day sale! https://society6.com/product/raccoon2599068_framed-print?curator=colorcatstudios. That means my adorable Raccoon!  You asked for him... here he is in whatever size or frame you want! :)

Society6, Color Cat Studios

Making Prints in The Woodlands

Still making prints over here.  This is a linoleum block.  They’re quite easy to carve; a LOT easier to carve than wood!  Also with wood you can pull maybe only 100 prints before the wood swells and shrinks too much.  These lino blocks can go a long time if you’re careful.

If you want to start easy with print making, you can actually do it on a styrofoam meat tray from the grocery store with a pencil and some acrylic paint.  That’s super basic but a good way to get a feel for the process.  I always use printer’s ink because it’s the perfect viscosity for all the details.  There are SO many ways to print and I love them ALL!

Picasso Quote

I popped this Picasso quote on one of my paintings and agree wholeheartedly. Honestly, I work like a dog.  I don’t even have time for UN-inspiration.  If I am ever uninspired I just go to my studio and clean brushes, sharpen pencils, leaf through sketchpads, look at my artist trading cards. So, while I’m doing that I’m getting things done AND... before I know it, I’m inspired again!  I am usually the opposite of uninspired; I have so many ideas that I can’t turn them all into paintings, sketches or notes.  There are just too many!  How about you? By the way, this painting is IMPOSSIBLE to photograph! See the lines through it? That’s the clear, shiny varnish which I laid down showing brushstrokes.  Cool, Burt I suppose I’ll never get a good pic.  Oh, well. :/

Painting Classically

Here we go again.  I’ve been working these two paintings together; the painting in the bottom photo is finished and now I’m doing the serious work on its mate.  A little progress report so you can see how I work.  FYI, it’ll be a while before I get good photos of these as they’re all golds and blacks.  Where you see the light reflecting glows, so it’s hard to photograph.  It should be a challenge for a photographer’s camp or something.

Always the thumbnails first.  And yes, my phone is a mess.  That’s because I USE it.  The sticker is one of my paintings; I sell stickers on my etsy site and my Society6 site.

Background done, so it begins.

Hello, Fibonacci!  You know I love you.

Here’s the finished one.  They’ll be a beautiful pair.