Archive | Cat stories RSS feed for this section

Caturday’s Scribble

7 Nov

pandemic scribble 1

Had a busy day today, doing some essential shopping for a relative and getting my one hour government sanctioned lockdown brisk walk and now I just want to slob out on the settee watching mindless telly with Sparta Puss at my side. But I didn’t do any art! So I grabbed a new sketchbook (Daler Rowney A4 95gsm acid free) and some conté crayons in black, white and sanguine and scribbled the cat, without having to move from the settee. Then I took a photo with the camera on my Smartphone (there’s magic) and uploaded it to my laptop (or is that downloaded), did a bit of cropping and resizing on Photoshop (ooh get me) and here she is. Simples.

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

Inspired by drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sparta Puss And The Magpie

2 Nov

Magpie final

Today I finished off the copy I made of Monet’s painting “The Magpie”, started with Ed Sumner’s Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook. So many shades of white! I used Liquitex heavy body acrylic paints, Daler Rowney brushes for acrylics and a primed canvas from Wilkinsons. Oh, and a couple of palette knives. In fact, I mostly used the palette knives, which is something new for me.

Sparta Puss isn’t impressed. We have a pair of magpies that return to nest in the tree next door every year and they are her sworn enemies. She’s never managed to harm them though. She’s a little on the ….. chunky side and can’t climb up as far as the nest. They torment her, throw stones at her and scream at her from the other side of the window when she’s indoors. She hates them.

Sparta Magpie

 

 

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left and to see the complete image.

Inspired by drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artefacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Looking Back (With A Kitten)

3 Sep

SONY DSC

Oh the glamour of being an artist. Sorting through my drawers. I decided to spend a bit of time this evening organising my plans chest, which meant rediscovering some of my older work. It was good, remembering how I’d done things a while back. This mixed media piece started as a drawing with a life model – my cat Sparta Puss, who was a kitten at the time, ran in playing with a ball of rolled up paper. I was going through a phase of preparing large sheets of beautiful paper – Bockingford, Somerset, BFK Rives, with random squeegeeing (a bit like Gerhard Richter) and screen prints to build up layers of background textures. Then I collaged and drew on top. The blanket that the model is lying on is made up of a ripped up linocut print that I ended up not liking. I painted all the little fragments with oil glazes before I stuck them down. Waste not, want not.

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Someone Else’s Cat

2 Sep

Benji 1

Husb and I had a socially distanced visit to some friends over the recent Bank Holiday. Their lives are graced by a magnificent Bengal cat. Unforunately, he was socially distancing as well so I wasn’t able to have a cuddle with him. I took some photos and had a quick scribble this evening, with Faber Castell Pitt drawing pens onto a scrap of paper made in the historic mill at Wookey Hole.

 

 

A Chance To Own One Of My Artworks

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Doing My Own Thing

24 Aug

step 1

I’ve been doing a fair bit of painting during lockdown. I challenged myself to improve my skills as I hardly ever paint. I’ve been doing a weekly practice session with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook, which has been great. I’ve learnt a lot. But today I decided that I should start to do my own thing instead of copying others. Another thing I’ve been doing during lockdown is a load of drawings en plein air with charcoal into my Khadi sketchbook. So today I used one of the drawings as source material and worked up a very basic underpainting onto a stretched canvas with transparent Liquitex acrylic paints, thinned with water.

cat and landscape

Later, I tried to take a photo of an abstract painting but Sparta Puss had other ideas!

 

I have some small screenprints for sale, inspired by my drawings of the taxidermy collection at Swansea Museum. I have given these antique artifacts a modern twist by combining them with images of rubbish – old fruit nets, bubble wrap and plastic – highlighting the problem of human pollution and how it affects wildlife.

To buy my work on the Swansea Print Workshop site please click the image to the left.

In this one, I combined the image of the bird with snippets of text of things my Nana used to say. She used to take me to Swansea Museum a lot when I was small and I could hear her voice in the back of my head as I was sitting and drawing the birds and bugs.

20 percent of the cost of each screenprint sold goes to support Swansea Print Workshop, which receives no public funding.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#Catitude

6 Aug

sparta spindle

Greetings Trained Monkeys. Sparta Puss here. The hairless apes have left the pooter box unattended again. I’ve had a fun 24 hours. Last night, I hid in the rhubarb patch when the she-simian was looking for me to get me to come in – I’m curfewed from dusk because I’m a murderer. She ran all over the place, then hassled the he-monkey to go out in the dark and look for me in his pyjamas and slippers in the rain. I sauntered in after she put some Dreamies into my bowl. Hilarious.

Then this morning I bit the female when she tried to brush me – “you’ll get furballs”, she said and gave up and went to put something called antiseptic cream on her hand. Then I went looking for somewhere to sick up a furball. The apes don’t have nice carpets, it’s all wood and tiles but there’s one rug in the house so I threw up on that. Then this evening the she-ape was lurking by the stairs where I was sitting, with one of her dirt sticks and a buk. She makes strange marks with her dirt sticks in the buk and then says it look like me. She’s an idiot! Anyway, as soon as she began, I started fidgeting and kept it up, even though she was cooing at me and asking me to sit still for a while because I was making it impossible for her to ‘draw’ me. Hah! That’ll teach her.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another Faking Friday

10 Jul

flowers 1

Another Friday lunchtime session with the Cheese and Wine Painting Club on Facebook, doing a copy of a classic painting in an hour and a half. I’ve never been into painting so I decided to learn how to do it during the lockdown. I’m learning a lot about technique and also about not being too precious, to work quickly and not get bogged down in detail. It’s how I tend to do my drawings but it’s the opposite of printmaking, which is usually a painstaking process.

The lunchtime sessions are headed up by the painter Ed Sumner. They’re fun, what we need during a pandemic, they’re free or donations if you can afford to and the next one is a David Hockney.

 

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sparta Puss Here

1 Jul

sparta 2

Greetings trained monkeys. Sparta Puss here. I’ve managed to get my paws on the pooter box while my hairless apes are preparing themselves for something called a Zoom Quiz. Idiots. I thought you’d like to see me. I’m posing with something called a buk. It is a special buk that the she-monkey pokes with a stick with dirt in it. She makes a mess then turns to me and says, “See Sparta. This is you”. She’s an idiot. But she gives me Dreamies. So I won’t trip her up on the stairs…………….yet…………………..

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Kitty Scribbles

22 Jun

Sparta sketches

Had one of those bitty days today. I carried on carving small lino blocks and as a bit of light relief I had a quick scribble with willow charcoal as Sparta Puss was lazing around.

sparta tools

She has a houseful of beds, comfy chairs, cushions as well as a sunny garden bench with a blanket just for her, but no, she’d rather doze on my sharp lino cutting tools.

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My Cat Is A Chonky Cat

18 Jun

Chonk

It’s pouring down and there are floods locally, so I’m not going on my government-sanctioned lockdown walk today. Which means I won’t be going to the park to draw some dramatic trees. So I grabbed some willow charcoal and scribbled my cat instead. Looking at her objectively, I think the vet might be right, she might be a little on the chonky side. Just a little. I do my best to keep her on a diet, but she goes visiting …. and she’s a real charmer …..

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries

%d bloggers like this: