Freyja has an exhausting day

Yesterday Freyja had an exhausting day, first she had to lie in the unseasonably warm sun, because who knows when that will happen again. Later she would have to decide which of her water glasses to drink out of. (She has a water glass next to my desk, so that she doesn’t try to drink my paint water). The sketch of fiddlers was from a completely different time and place, but ironically she has also had to put up with listening to sight-reading practice on an actual fiddle. It was hard work for both of us…

Bluey-White

Percy is unimpressed. Every hair on his substantial bottom is registering disapproval at the recent turn of events. For one thing, its awful bluey-whiteness is apt to make him look grubby. He is watching it get dark now, and it is still bluey-white. Hopefully by morning the staff will have fixed it…  

Cats are back!

There have been complaints from some quarters that I have not drawn enough cats lately. However I have converted what used to be my blog for mostly cat drawings (catoftheday.wordpress.com) into a site for entirely swimming drawings (waterdrawn.com). So the cats must find a new home. Here.

An Exhausting Sunday

Sergeant Stripes has had an exhausting Sunday. First, the greenhouse seemed sunny, and appropriate for sleeping, but then it was such a lovely day that the greenhouse was too hot, and sleeping had to be done in the garden. Now it is cooler, but the greenhouse is clearly not to be relied upon. Taking no chances Sarge has decided to play it safe and sleep instead in a box in my studio, where the only danger is that one may suddenly become an artist’s model. Which is exhausting. [If you are thinking this sort of post usually appears on my…

A Cat may look at a King

With only a few weeks to go before my solo exhibition in Ilminster in July, I started working on some Spelling Animals pictures.I’ve been doing the Spelling Animals for customers for several years, and as cards for the nieces and nephews for some years before that,. but I’ve done any for myself – or at least, since they are still for sale,  for nobody in particular yet. So this was something of a treat: free-range Spelling Animals, willing to spell anything I chose to ask of them. Here is what the cats spelt. And, since this is not for a…

Cat Logic

From my Cat-of-the-Day sketchbook blog I have made a little range of Cat greetings cards, many of which feature informative notes on the Logic of Cats. These may prove most useful to Humans, who often fail to understand the motives and innate helpfulness of these charming creatures.  The current range can be seen in my Etsy Shop, and wholesale prices are also available if you would like to email me.

The Spelling Animals in Action

A couple of fairly recent Spelling Cat names that I have never got round to posting on this blog. If you’d like your own name or somebody else’s spelt in cats, dogs, lizards, octopi etc, do have a look at the Spelling Animals section in my Etsy shop (note: dogs aren’t listed there yet, but I can do dogs too!) It is important to have a good imagination to do this job, because this is what my models usually look like. Here is Freyja, helping:

One year, two calendars: Cats & Swimming for 2016.

…but no, absolutely no swimming cats! The calendar designs are finally finished, and I am awaiting samples from the printers. I have set up a page for each one in the ‘Finished Artwork’ section of this website (links below). There will be a 10% discount for early orders, placed by Sunday August 23rd, after that the price will be £12 each or £10 each if ordering more than one at a time. If these images come as a surprise, they are all selections of my digital drawings from the Cat-of-the-Day blog The images below are just tasters, the links below…

Stripy cat bottom!

I promised you a cat bottom, so here it is! This one was taken from the very first post of my cat-of-the-day sketchbook blog: http://catoftheday.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/3/. It’s another mezzotint of course, printed from aluminium. The print is only 8cm square by the way, but if you want to see it quite close up, just click on the image. Here is the original sketch (below). Arthur is not really that stripy, but it was a starting point: And below – a few of the stages of making the plate:  

Memento Mori

Not-so-cute cats (mostly). Do not fear, there are no dead cats in this post, but perhaps rat-owners might be advised to look away and to skip this one. Continuing with my little series of cat mezzotint prints, I felt it was important that I didn’t end up with a series entirely comprising nice cute cat pictures. Cats are lovely, but lets have the Compleat Cat. Therefore, I thought at the very least there should be the classic cat-washing-bum pose, and at lease one dead rat. We have chickens and where they live has become so badly undermined with rats we…