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August Featured Artwork and Desktop Calendar: Find the Kitty in This Painting

"Find the Kitty in This Painting", colored chalk, pencil, charcoal, pastel pencil on mat board, 12" x 19", 1987 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
“Find the Kitty in This Painting”, colored chalk, pencil, charcoal, pastel pencil on mat board, 12″ x 19″, 1987 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Often for my August desktop calendar I choose a bright and colorful work that coordinates with the intense sun and heat of August. This year I went with a cooler look, though the painting is of Sally napping in the sun in July or August when the temperatures hovered around 100 most of the late summer. And as always I like to have a good bit of diversity in subject, medium, color scheme and more from month to month. I debated with this painting and Sleeping Beauty but decided I’d keep that one for a winter calendar when I like to feature pencil, ink or monochromatic works. I hope you enjoy the story and the art!

~~~

I’m going way back to my beginnings with this painting/sketch. It predates all of my pastels, but is actually my first work in color, when I decided to move from pencil to try to interpret some of the lovely colors I saw in the world around me, and especially in my cats.

In fact, this sketch isn’t even in pastel at all—I used colored chalk! I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t want to invest in those expensive pastels unless I knew I could produce something with them. How I would know when I could do that without actually using them I don’t know, but I think it had something to do with my level of confidence while I worked on the sketch, much the same as it had been when I worked in pencil. I could visualize the medium, I could visualize the sketch, getting that visualization on the paper was my goal, and in order to do that I had to work the medium and at least basically understand its properties.

Moving on to a new medium? As always, my cats led the way. When I put together my first portfolio book in 1993, I used a photo album with 3.5″ x 5″ photos of my works and often the reference photo and a paragraph of text along with the name and details of the work pictured, using my very first personal computer at home to design and print the information, then glue the photos in place. Ah, sweet memories, building my future. Here is what I had to say about this painting:

Sally can’t ever be too warm. This picture was taken during the summer when temperatures were consistently in the 90s and sometimes over 100 degrees, and this is a south-facing window. When I got this picture back, I wondered why I had taken a picture of this plant, then I saw her tail, and then her face. I hadn’t started working in color yet, so rather than invest in pastels right away, I used colored chalk to see how I would do. The experiment was enough to make me want to explore some more.

I remember that summer. It was two years before I moved into this house and at least that rented house was larger with far more cross-ventilation and a large cool basement, but the heat was brutal, a month of excessive temperatures in a year of drought, very unusual here in Western Pennsylvania. But Sally still spent time in her favorite sunny spots; at the time I had no idea about heat stroke or sunburn in a white cat with pink skin, so I’m glad Sally had a little bit of sense to move herself before she was in danger of roasting herself.

Reference photo for "Find the Kitty".
Reference photo for “Find the Kitty”.

I remember looking at the photo when I got it back too. I remember my eyes kind of picking through it, pulling apart the details and planning how to put it together on paper, a process that is so much a part of my everyday life now after years of visualizing works, but was still pretty new then. And though I’d worked pretty much exclusively in pencil up to then, and this would have been a nice pencil sketch too, it was the delicate colors, the pink of Sally’s nose and ears, the wandering embroidered flowers on those curtains that I loved, the light through the curtains, and the light on the tabletop, that made me decide to try color. At first, I wanted to try watercolor but was intimidated by my total lack of knowledge and the materials I needed to purchase, plus the fact that between two jobs, cats, garden, and renovating this house I had little time to work so I wanted something that didn’t really require set up and preparation and clean up. There was no way I could paint in oils or acrylics to achieve what I saw, and I knew colored pencil wouldn’t work. I remembered pastels, looked at my big box of colored chalk. Possibly, if the subject had been my black cat Kublai instead of my white cat Sally my decision would have been different, but I decided that box of chalk would do to start with. That decision was what led me to working with pastels even today.

I had been visiting the art and craft store where I eventually began my weekend part-time job (in addition to my full-time job as a typesetter), and was learning framing as part of that job. I had a piece of gray mat board left over from some framing experiments with some of my pencil drawings, and decided that would be the perfect base for my experiment. Still feeling most confident with pencil, I outlined the scene onto the matboard in pencil, which you can see throughout the sketch. And then I started applying the chalk, figuring out how to apply the medium to the surface and let it do what it would so that it looked like what I was visualizing. But, really, this first attempt was largely like a paint-by-number with the sketch underneath and me concerned about coloring outside the lines and, at first, no blending. I look at that mess of leaves now and don’t want to get involved, but it was a huge challenge, then, and fun.

Detail of the leaves.
Detail of the leaves.

Chalk, however, is chalk, and though I had a big set of colored chalk none of them was dark enough to work the shadows. My pencils weren’t dark enough, and my charcoal was black, which wasn’t the right tone for the table and the shadows around…already I was seeing more color than I had when I’d started and thought all the shadows were black or shades of gray.

I paced back and forth at the art store, and decided to get a product that walked the line between my familiar pencils and the pastels I wanted to use without having to purchase a whole set—pastel pencils. I bought a dark brown one. Bold move.

Detail of Sally's face and the curtain and light on the table.
Detail of Sally’s face and the curtain and light on the table.

Much of it is pretty amateur, especially Sally’s face and tail, but I remember being pleased with the way some things worked out, feeling there was a point where it was actually finished but not perfect, and deciding that next time—there would be a “next time”?—I would to a few things differently, and I would also invest in a box of real pastels.

I still remember how exciting it was to see the image emerge from the gray matboard as if it was dimensional, so different from watching one of my pencil drawings develop; though they can appear dimensional as well and mine often did, the addition of color for the first time was breathtaking.

One of the elements of the scene I found very inspiring in addition to Sally and the curtain and the spots of light on the table is the one stray leaf that gracefully falls down in the lower right. I still find exciting little details like that in each painting, background elements that make the rest of the painting interesting. I didn’t know that then either.

Detail of Sally's tail and the table, and that one leaf.
Detail of Sally’s tail and the table, and that one leaf.

I didn’t sign my paintings then, not until a couple of years later, one of those odd humility things, feeling I didn’t deserve to sign my art, something I think every creative person moves through. In fact, I just signed it today, finally, when I removed it from the frame to scan.

The frame and mat for this sketch.
The frame and mat for this sketch.

This painting has always hung in my bedroom, first in a plastic poster frame, and then in a frame I actually pulled out of someone’s trash and cleaned up that magically has a sponged finish including several of the darker colors in it. I look at the painting frequently, often visualizing the scene with today’s experience and knowing I’d do things very differently, but still with a lot of pride at what I accomplished in this early sketch. I also feel the memories of that time and place, smile at Sally and her ways, and look fondly at those curtains that I loved so much, the plant I’d pulled from the back room at the mall where I had worked and revived it, moving it from that house to here and having it until just a few years ago, those orange crocheted doilies that never ruffled right, the cheap mahogany-finish tables that had been my grandparents’ which I still use today, and think of that moment in time, the cats, how each of them came to me to form my first feline family, that house, the light, and how young I was. I also remember visualizing, suddenly seeing art everywhere, everything my cats did, the colors of flowers and how I would render them, and taking more and more photos.

This, of course, just a month or so later, led me to setting out my brand new set of pastels and boldly launching into “Waiting for Mom”, and the rest is history.

. . . . . . .

What is the difference between a “sketch” and a “painting”? Because pastel is a dry medium and not paint at all works have long been classed as drawings, and pastel works not considered “finished” or “final”, more like studies. But as pastel has become more popular and considered a medium in its own right, some works are also considered paintings. If a work covers the entire surface edge to edge in what is considered the image area, the work is considered a painting. If not, it’s considered a sketch. Of course, that can be subjective—many of the daily sketches I’ve done could be considered paintings because they fill edge to edge, but I’d still consider them sketches in part because that’s the way I think if them. But things evolve in our daily use, and art materials and works of art are among them.

. . . . . . .

Where to find this art

You can always find Find the Kitty in This Painting in the listing on Portraits of Animals. This painting is also available as a greeting card.

. . . . . . .

And a New Member Thank You

"Find the Kitty in This Painting", colored chalk, pencil, charcoal, pastel pencil on mat board, 12" x 19", 1987 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski
“Find the Kitty in This Painting”, colored chalk, pencil, charcoal, pastel pencil on mat board, 12″ x 19″, 1987 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

You can get a free matted print when you register for an account on Portraits of Animals.

Register for an account on Portraits of Animals and get a free double-matted print of Find the Kitty in This Painting or choose from several other sketches, paintings or photos of cats and other subjects.

This New Member print is a signed matted 8″ x 11″ digital print of Find the Kitty in This Painting. The print is 8″ x 11″ and is double matted to fit an 11″ x 14″ frame with a pure white mat.

This print is only available as a new member gift during this month while it’s the featured artwork and desktop calendar, so make sure you sign up before the end of the month!


This month’s desktop calendar

If these sizes don’t work for your device, or if you have problems, please let me know. Often I can troubleshoot the reason an image won’t download or won’t load on your device, but if I just can’t figure it out I can just email it to you and hope that works.

How to download and use your desktop calendar

  1. Click on one of the images below that matches the dimensions of your monitor to open the image in a new page.
  2. For desktop computers and laptops, right-click on that image and on a desktop computer choose “save as desktop wallpaper” or “save as background” or whichever option your operating system gives you to be able to do this. You may also simply save it to your hard drive and set it as your background from there.
  3. For mobile devices, press on the image to bring up a menu and choose “open in new window”. Go to that window and press until a menu appears and choose as “set as wallpaper” or “set as lock screen” or whatever you’d like—this is slightly different on all devices.

Horizontal and HD monitors and screens

Desktop calendar 2560 x 1440 for HD and wide screens.
Desktop calendar 2560 x 1440 for HD and wide screens.

. . .

Square monitors and screens

Desktop calendar, 1280 x 1024 for square and laptop monitors.
Desktop calendar, 1280 x 1024 for square and laptop monitors.

. . .

Small Mobile Devices and Tablets

 Desktop calendar, 600 x 800 for iPad, Kindle and other readers.
Desktop calendar, 600 x 800 for iPad, Kindle and other readers.

. . .

Cell Phones and Smartphones

Desktop calendar, for 400 x 712 for mobile phones.
Desktop calendar, for 400 x 712 for mobile phones.


Take a look at other featured artwork and desktop calendar posts.

Each month I feature a piece of feline artwork from the archives to the present day, discuss its history and process, and set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.


Click here to see daily sketches, click here to see daily photographs

click here to see other artwork featured on The Creative Cat

or visit Fine Art and Portraiture on my main website.


"Feline Style Sampler" book of sketches and portraits.

A collection of 34 images of feline artwork

Feline Style Sampler

Daily sketches, illustrations, commissioned portraits all in a small coil-bound gift book.

Click here or on the image to read more or find it on Portraits of Animals.




Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.


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© 2022 | www.TheCreativeCat.net | Published by Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Weekly schedule of features:

Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life

Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters

Tuesday: Rescue Stories

Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy

Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats

And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!

 
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Bernadette

From health and welfare to rescue and adoption stories, advocacy and art, factual articles and fictional stories, "The Creative Cat" offers both visual and verbal education and entertainment about cats for people who love cats, pets and animals of all species.

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