The finished cat painting

I've got to say I enjoyed painting this acrylic a lot more than I did working the designs out in drawings and  watercolors. Time will tell how much I like the finished result but I loved working on it and that's the most important thing to me right now.

As always I'll experiment with the design on products on Zazzle to see what else I can do with it. Meanwhile I keep it with my other items for sale in the glass front cabinet in my dining room. We may put it up for sale on etsy but haven't decided yet

Finishing the first painting

The light really streams in here in the afternoon. Working in changing light is always a challenge.

There are still a couple of these in progress but I think the results are promising so far, don't you?

I'm planning to have a lot of fun with this image and am heading to Zazzle to see what I can make out of it.

Back to painting again

The experiment continues

 Those of you that follow this blog may find this project a bit familiar. I did some paintings  of different horses on black backgrounds once or twice in the last couple of years and they proved to be pretty popular on products in my stores on Zazzle.

I found myself curious as to whether other shapes would be as popular or more so than the horses were so I'm trying butterflies and cats this time.

I'm also combining the sunflower cat idea I recently did in watercolor. It's fun to see all of the ideas coming together in different ways, isn't it? Who knows where it will go next?

Pushing through old ideas and reaching for new ones

I've used multiple, overlapping images before but hadn't tried it with cats yet so I started there.

The sunflower idea had been done on wooden horses, pencil and watercolor cats so I thought it would be fun to try in acrylics on a canvas panel to see how it looks that way.

As always when I'm putting things on a dark background I think a bit of outlining helps. Here are before, in progress and after photos so that you can decide whether you agree with me or not.

Lots of projects, places and things

Besides the cats you saw on the mail this week I designed several more elaborate ones to go on products at Zazzle and spent a LOT of time designing things with them there.

Back at the worktable there is always mail and a lot of the drawings don't get scanned before I send them out. Letters went to Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Florida.

As I was finishing with the cats I grabbed a canvas panel and sketched out an arrangement of them much the way I've done with horses and butterflies in the past so that I can fill in each shape with things I like to paint and things I'm teaching myself to paint. I get a lot of practice with various brush strokes and designs and the paintings are always nice enough for gifts or sale. Yes, it's always a win, win situation no matter how they turn out.

This morning I'll start with Zazzle and hope that my sales improve there.

Photos of the finished painted box with cat designs

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Front

This little box is a gift for a friend who enjoys cats and bright yarns. I didn't have much of a design plan in mind as I started and pretty much just painted whatever came to mind on the cat shapes. I'm not that thrilled with the results but it was fun to work on and I think my friend will enjoy it anyway.

The border around the bottom of the box is supposed to be balls of variegated yarn unrolling playfully. I may come back to this idea sometime and develop it further, possibly try it on a chest large enough to store knitting and crochet supplies in.

Cats in the mail

 As you can see, cats are not a subject I'm used to drawing so I thought I'd take a playful approach and give it a try anyway.

This one's even more awkward but it's only the envelope so it won't matter much.

This went to an Aunt and gave me a bit of practice for the wooden box I'm painting for a cat loving friend.