Cats Are Simply Graceful

Nobody posed Giuseppe like this, he just sat in front of the window, curved his back and turned his head, the light reflected off the casement outside and illuminated him from the side casting a mirror shadow of him on the patterned rug. Who could ask for more?

In part, Giuseppe’s saturated blackness accentuates his graceful posture. This photo was taken with the “little” camera that doesn’t handle contrasts so well; sometimes I focus on one or more of the Big Four or Mimi and my camera gives me a confused stuttering beep that means, “I don’t see anything!” Poor little camera. In this case I’m glad Giuseppe’s silhouette is largely saturated because I like the mix of detail and pattern in the rest of the image.

If I were to paint this (hmmm, where did that come from) whether it be watercolor, gouache or pastel, I might flatten things out even more so the patterns were more obvious. This rug has been around for decades and I have photos of plenty of cats on it; in this case it’s covering the dark green wooden cover I have over my three file cabinets which make a tabletop, but against which I can’t photograph black cats. This rug may show up in several other paintings.

In the meantime, I just get to enjoy Giueseppe, who truly loves lives to be enjoyed.