You can’t escape them. If they want to climb up your leg and stick their claws in, or jump across the room to get on your shoulder? Then they will spring athletically with powerful muscles and grip on like grim death!
Food? You want to share? No… But they look at you with those great big eyes and you are hypnotised. But they are such good companions (which means when it suits them, not you) it’s amazing how a three to four kilo animal can pin down a human, who then apologises when the time comes to move them. Dead weight? Surely cats weigh more!
Cats have their own minds. They don’t like being controlled. You can’t pick them up if they don’t want to be. They squirm, and watch out for the claws!
They have their skills, catching rodents. But why do they have to leave you a ‘little gift?’ that cartoon image of a mouse with crosses for eyes springs to mind.
I painted the leather seat if this stool/box about thirty years ago. It used to hold all my old oil paints but they dried out years ago. I unearthed it recently. One of the problems with being an artist I have found, is collecting art materials. I have stuff that goes back years. I tend to think one day things will come in handy. Is anyone else here an artist? Are you the same? Materials cost so much its almost a sin to throw things away.
This is a cat on a mat on a parquet floor. As you can see even then I loved patterns. It’s varnished, but you can see where I must have left a thinners can on the surface that left paint rings…
She often looks out watching the cars and vans racing up the hill. Looking at birds flying up to the factory roof, playing with the mobile on the window. Jumping down and clawing my legs under the desk when I go to type things up. This is her territory. She’s upstairs and her brother is downstairs. Both in their individual realms. They sometimes meet to play and chase. She’s a happy cat, she is mistress of all she surveys.
I found this in the front bedroom while having a clear out. It’s the photo I used to base a painting of my old cat on. Looking up the stairs at the window. It’s great to find it, it brings back great memories of a very friendly intelligent cat. She used to like sitting in the sun on the windowledge. She would sit there in the mornings until the sun moved round to the other side of the house, then she would move to the bedroom window, or she would come downstairs and go out into the garden. Good memories.
Rather a painterly effect. The cats fur has an interesting pattern in it. The newspaper layers are defined. The surface of the box has a slight mottled effect. This was all done by using the style tool and choosing effect number two. The background colours add to the composition. I would have liked to get the cat looking more directly at me, but she wasn’t playing tonight! She does like perching on boxes as you can see. I think it looks quite good.
Quick sketch, layers for #bandofsketchers. Just a pile of washing on the settee with the cat in attendance. Not very exciting I’m afraid. I woukd have liked to have drawn the layers of a cake, or layers of rock in a cliff, or even layers of clothes that someone is wearing, or layers of cloud, but I didn’t have much choice as I haven’t been out today. It’s a bit garish, but I love pattern and colour, so it will do.
He’s sitting on a towel on the back of the settee. As I pass he stretches on his back and paws reach out, sometimes snagging my tee-shirt as I walk past. Off for a quick snack and a drink in the kitchen then he lies down, Curls up, nose under paw, tail wrapped round. Warm, happy, comfy…. I wish I was a cat!
She gave me the metal cat as a present, it was sweet of her, but I could not get over the staring eyes. Googly eyes. Glass eyes. It was like the cat had no eyelids.
I put my ‘present’ on the windowledge in the kitchen. As the nights drew in the cat was more noticeable. The eyes, staring. I would try and look the other way as I walked past it to the back door or the bathroom, and on my return I would look at the cooker or the fridge just to avoid its eyes. Her eyes, definitely female, feline eyes.
It was a few months later, September or October, when the nights began to last longer than the days. I looked over at her, but she was facing the other way? Looking out of the window? I asked my husband, no he hadn’t moved her. I asked him to put her back facing inwards. She’s heavy so he did it for me. But, the next night, the same thing. We moved her back… This was the same every night for a week. It kept happening.
The next night I looked and she wasn’t there. I looked around, she was by the cat flap! This was mad. Either my husband was doing it, or the cat had some sort of magical power? I was getting scared it was very strange. I wanted to tell someone, but my husband said if I told the police, or friends, they would think I was going daft.
Every time I put the cat back it moved overnight. So what else could I do? I stayed up after my husband had gone to bed. I looked in the kitchen, and as I did, the cat stretched, front legs, then back legs, arched it’s back, tail straight up…. And jumped… Jumped off the ledge, onto the kitchen counter and onto the floor! It looked back with those eyes…. I was mesmerised. It walked to the back door and I followed. It pawed at the door. What could I do? I opened it. As I did, ghostly black cat shapes poured in! All of them with staring eyes. I knew then I wasn’t safe….
Mallaband-Brown 