More Art Coming!!

It’s coming!  More beautiful artwork in my Shiny Pebble series coming tonight!

The work Behind a Painting

How do you prepare yourself for a piece of work?  As for me, my paintings don’t just jump out.  Idea, brainstorm, lots of thumbnail sketches .  Finally, getting the drawing onto the paper or canvas and then working out the colors.  This swatch?  I had a painting ready and wanted to choose three good, warm colors that would compliment each other.  So, when you see anybody’s art , appreciate it for how much consideration and work has gone into it.  AND... this is a hint of things to come!! 

Art Giveaways

For those of you who entered and won my Win the Masked Cat art contest, they are now ON THEIR WAY!  If you didn’t win, I’m putting some of them on my website at Colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

Art Inspiration

This is what happens when we have peonies, my favorite flower. First a little sketch. Then a drawing.  Then, hmmm... this would be a nice print block, and now... NOW... I am going to be carving FOREVER.  It’s a wonderful work, really, to see this come into fruition in front of my eyes, but it is a long process and my hands are tired. 

 I think I’m gong to go for a walk.  Maybe I’ll find flowers...

Quarantine Printing

The beautiful thing about block printing is that each piece has its own characteristics and no two are the same.  I love the way you can see right through these.

You can find more of my work at 

Colorcatstudios101 at Etsy. COOL STUFF!!!

Fluid Painting for Sale

For sale, toes not included.  This painting, ‘Chain of Events’ features a copper chain which runs through it.  These neutrals mixed in with the copper remind me of an aerial map of water and land.  You can find it and two of its mates for sale at:

ColorCatStudios101 at Etsy

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

Owl Painting on Society6

I finally got my owl image on Society6! Now you can find him on all sorts of lovely goods for your home and body at this site:

Color Cat Studios on Society6

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,

An Artist’s Palette

I love working with this silver paint by Golden Products.  It’s SUPER shiny and silvery.  Paints and other materials really can make or break a painting.  If you want great work, use great stuff.

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.

My Newest Painting!

Here’s my newest painting, just finished today! Your’s truly holding my matching palette in front of it.

The paints themselves are so beautiful.  Aside from the gold, I used a micaceous oxide paint (expensive) which you can see in the closeup. It’s hard to photograph but is made of crushed up mica and you get this gorgeous, shiny, textured grey like, well, crushed up mica.  

The entire piece is really reflective and hard to photograph.  My goal was to make it look classical and timeless.  What comes off as peachy in the photo is actually a titanium white for the highlights which makes it look more three dimensional.

Here it is still sitting on my easel in my studio:

This is the closeup, showing some of the cool textures as well as the mica flecks (sort of)

  I’ll keep working on better photos.  Anyway, I’m happy.  Finishing a painting is like giving birth to a child. :)

New Year’s Resolution - Cleaning

Let’s take a moment to laud the lowly stir stick.  Beautiful in their own right where would we be without them, after all?  As for me, I’d have very colorful fingers. Today is studio cleaning day which involves a lot of gathering and putting things into their rightful place.

The background is a handmade linen scarf we bought from a vendor in Belgium.  We were traveling on a particularly chilly day.  Gary bought a sweatshirt, I bought this scarf.  The two items made our day and we were nice and cozy after that!  I first laid the stir sticks on my desk, but the desk looks the same so it was like they were wearing camouflage.  Had to find a plain background! 🤭

This unsung paint sticks really ARE beautiful, aren’t they? And now I actually have them all in one place instead of scattered all over the house and garage.  Maybe.  Now... what else can I organize around here...

An Artist’s Palette

Palette of the Day.  I think they’re beautiful just the way they are.  More than once I’ve thought I’d like to publish a book of studio images and palettes; really, I think it’s just all so beautiful.  I’ve been spending a lot more time in the studio these days, and one of my (multitudinous) goals is to spend even more time creating.  It’s a constant battle to get it all done, as I am sure you know.  Not sure about those books; I have a lot in me but finding the time to get it all out is a continual challenge.  Anybody else feeling this?

Happy New Year Artist Desk

Happy new year!  From my desk to yours.  My desk is sporting a lot of Golden paints, my favorite, Bubba!  When I get into the throes of painting I leave a wake of a mess behind me.  That’s what we’ve got here; I’m lucky to get the lids on straight.  Once finished with my work I go back and open each lid, clean off dry or oozing paint and get the lids on nice and tight.  As for the mugs?  The sock monkey has got to be my favorite student gift this year.  I think it came filled with cocoa or something.  Makes me smile every time I look at it.  The Nashville mug represents our church choir’s trip there this fall.  It was AWESOME!  We sang at the Ryman Auditorium, made a recording, went to the Country Music Hall of Fame, rode Segues all over town - SOO fun - toured Nashville in so many ways, went to the Johnny Cash museum, enjoyed the Dove Awards... and ate at Peg Leg Porker’s.  Wow.  Some of the best food we’ve ever HAD.

Watercolor Sketch

Sometimes I end up liking the weirdest stuff.  This pencil sketch of a tree took me all of a minute.  Painting it probably took all of five minutes.  And I like it!  Who knew? This painting used Ruby Mountain’s awesome Indigo, their Paris Green and coolest-ever Naples Yellow.  Ruby Mountain, LOVE your paints!

You would also notice my phone up there; I ALWAYS use an Otterbox.  I chose to have a ‘pretty’ phone case and my phone lasted three weeks.  Yep.  Tried and true Otterbox person here.  On my phone case is a sticker of one of my paintings.  Did you know?  I sell stickers?  Yep.  Find them on my website with all kinds of lovely things: www.colorcatstudios101.etsy.com

Watercolor Fun

A nice cold day.  Good for walks and fires and watercolors.  It’s not often I get a chance to sit down and paint for pure joy.  The other day on a walk I looked up and saw sweet gum boughs and thought, ‘I could paint sweet gum...’.

Recently I got some new watercolors that are highly sedimentary and some have mica in them to add some pizzazz.  Likey!  I am a tried and true fan of Golden’s QOR watercolors; they are simply the best.  But recently I purchased some handmade watercolors from Ruby Mountain Watercolors and am wholeheartedly impressed!  

This shows my little sweet gum design from start to finish.  You would also note that you can see light pencil lines.  I’m a big fan of understanding the process and love to peer into paintings and figure out how they were done.  Those light pencil lines in my work are your first clue! 

Testing out the paints.  I always do this on nice paper and find a way to repurpose it; cards, bookmarks, ATC cards, etc.

Ruby Mountain paints.  Look them up!  Well worth it.  I think my dive into handmade watercolors may cost me dearly....

Finished piece. :). Happy

An Artist’s Palette

What is this, you ask?  Why, thank you for asking!  It’s our... dum de da bum.... Palette of the Day!  (so exciting).  This palette represents something I don’t get much of a chance to do - artist’s play. Mixing colors, adding white, lowering the colors with black, etc.  This kind of ‘play’ is actually really key to an artist’s understanding and use of color.  Second pic is my results.  Work like this, which I find relaxing and rejuvenating, is super important to my ‘serious’ work. 

An Artist’s Palette

Palette of the Day.  My most-used tool.  I think palettes are beautiful.  This one represents animal fur and animal noses. :)