Thursday, March 28, 2024
daily photokitty things

Daily Photo: Kitty Things

Cat figurine.
Cat figurine.

Above, an Impressionist figurine of a person sitting and holding a cat. I like loose sculptures as much as I like loose paintings, and I’ve always like this series of figurines. They are difficult to photograph because they are small and they are black, so I always try to catch them in good varied light.

I was a speaker at Pet Memorial Sunday and also photographed the event. We always decorate with cat and dog and bunny and bird and other animal figurines and urns and I like to capture those because I like them, and so that I can use them on Deb’s website and with my articles here and other places. I also use them for inspiration.

Below, a pretty kitty figurine in the grass, just waiting to greet you. Kitty figurines are another idea I’ve been working on lately.

Kitty sculpture.
Kitty sculpture.

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Photos I’ve shared on or around this date

Up in the Treehouse, 2016
Up in the treehouse.
Up in the treehouse.

Up in the treehouse in the morning, with two of my silhouettes. It’s what I call my studio in the summer with all the trees outside the window, and even in other seasons when the branches are bare. In the morning it’s very cool and leafy and it feels private, and literally above it all, just like being up in a tree in a secret place looking out on the neighborhood. Apparently Mimi and Giuseppe are keeping an eye on the neighbors going to work and school.

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On Instagram and Facebook

Mewsette enjoys a good stretch in the sun and scratch on the basement cat tree on this wonderful late summer morning.

Mewsette's Morning
Mewsette’s Morning

Meanwhile, later…

Oops, Mimi is napping in my greeting cards, can’t fill my orders until she wakes up! Cats’ rules!

Mimi naps among the boxes of cards.
Mimi naps among the boxes of cards.

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Photos I’ve shared on or around this date

Daily Photo: On An Adventure
Mimi goes on an adventure.
Mimi goes on an adventure.

“Every day should be an adventure. Mimi and I explored a small section of the neighbor’s yard.”

I posted this on Facebook this morning, and decided it needed its own post rather than added into another. I like the composition right away, Mimi walking through a passage or sorts; I had posted one like this earlier this year as well. I love those two trees, the one with the “toes” is a maple and the other is a tulip poplar, each at least 70 feet tall, and I study them all the time, looking at them out my kitchen window and door in all seasons, and sketched and photographed that little scooped opening through the trees. Because they are so tall it’s very shady in my yard, but the neighbor’s yard in the morning is full of sun and the contrast adds to the feel of a passageway. When I saw her heading there I positioned myself to get the angle I wanted, then followed her. Then the first of the colored autumn leaves with the rich green of summer, the rough bark of the trees, the light, and little Mimi going fearlessly into new territory. Well, sort of. She still knows the neighborhood pretty well. Adding the vignette shading around the outside just added to it. I may do something with this at some time.

And some days I just have too many photos and have to post more.

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Photos I’ve shared on or around this date

Smokie and Mirrors, 2014
black kitten on windowsill
Who is that kitten?!

There’s a kitten in here!

So Smokie discovered “up” this morning. I’ve been a little surprised that a kitten his age wasn’t already up on the windowsill. I’m accustomed to kittens half his age hanging from curtain rods, yet he’d only begun to explore the tub. I heard some strange sounds that I might have attributed to Fatso the Squirrel running around on the roof or climbing the trees and making the branches tap against the walls, but I didn’t see anything from the windows. Then I realized I was hearing it through the ceiling.

I went upstairs to find several things on the floor and Smokie on the windowsill. Time to move a lot of things out of the way…It’s really fun to see him up here where I’ve seen so many other cats through the years.

black kitten on windowsill
Checking the weather–a little cool this morning!

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Black Cat Kitchen Ornament, 2013
Black Cat Kitchen Ornament, every home should have one!
Black Cat Kitchen Ornament, every home should have one!

I have found this Black Cat Kitchen Ornament to be quite beautiful and easily adaptable to any conditions in my kitchen, whether I’m cooking or canning, putting away groceries, washing dishes, working on my computer or pushing papers as I often do in the kitchen. While this highly flexible and mobile item adequately holds cookbooks open and keeps recipes and other papers from blowing away, I haven’t found a real purpose for the elegant and realistic sculpture yet, but I can’t imagine my kitchen without it.

Mimi says, “Perhaps my method of subtle supervision isn’t working.”

I must always leave space for Mimi in whatever it is I’m doing. Not even the box on the table will work—that’s too far away. She must be as close to me as possible. I am honored. And a little crowded.

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Vintage Photo: Where Have You Been?, 2012
 Where have you been?
Where have you been?

Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here, watching the sunlight glide across the porch and all the shadows stretch themselves like lazy cats on the warm concrete. Even the flowers have changed from buttercups to asters in this quiet afternoon. The day is quickly passing; come inside and be with us.

Sophie sits in the corner of the door, happy to see me, from some time in the late 90s. I can’t have been gone too long since the interior door is open and I would not have left for a long afternoon that way, but Sophie has her own sense of time, like her mamá, and she and I both knew an entire season could pass in an afternoon. My front porch, my welcoming scene for over two decades, and for most of those years, Sophie waiting impatiently for me to come in.

Read about Sophie, the Housewarming Cat, and see other images of Sophie.

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All Cats on Desk, 2011
 Seven cats on my desk.
Seven cats on my desk.

Okay, there were the five yesterday, and today I had the opportunity to get all seven, which is the typical morning arrangement. They’re not as nicely grouped, but that’s partly because I ad to stand up to take the photo, which caused Mimi and Jelly Bean to also get up and get ready to accompany me wherever I was going.

Two torties on my lap.
Two torties on my lap.

Cookie had been trying to get back on my lap, but I’d never be able to get up then. She and Kelly had been on my lap, and I was trying to keep them both on the keyboard shelf so that I could quickly stand up and take the photo.

From the back this time are Mimi and Kelly on the shelf; on the desk are Jelly Bean, Mr. Sunshine, and Mewsette and Giuseppe cuddled in a heart shape. Cookie is on my keyboard shelf, getting ready to jump down to my chair since it’s nice and warm after me sitting in it.

I think the heart shape cuddling is usually Mewsette’s idea. In every photo I have of two of them cuddling in a heart shape, Mewsette is one of the kitties!

Nonetheless, this is what my mornings are like. I gave up keeping my desk neat because anything that is set on it is moved around for kitty comfort. I’m actually looking for a new desk, shelves and whole workspace in this little corner with lots of cubbyholes to tuck things out of kitty reach, so I’m not too concerned at the moment.

As I said about yesterday’s photo (from 2011) (and don’t miss the update from just yesterday, 2012!), I’m sure they all like me and enjoy spending time with me but I know their dedication to my desk has to do with the “kitty keep-warm lamps”. During the summer I don’t use the task lights very often because the room is generally bright enough, and the lights are just too darned hot. As the air cools and the sun drops down lower in the sky, my office is suddenly darker with all the trees outside. From then I turn the lights on, and if I ever needed a passive cat-herding apparatus it would be these lights. I have actually set up lights elsewhere just to see what happens, and they are immediately popular.

It’s a very, very sweet memory as we again approach Pet Memorial Sunday and I prepare my speech about “The Joy of Pets”, loving again after loss.

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Two Kellies for the Price of One, 2010
Two Kellies for the price of one.
Two Kellies for the price of one.

Kelly bathes in front of the mirror on top of the tallest books in the cat book library, unaware that another tortie girl is bathing behind her, sort of.

Kelly makes the sweetest disgusting noises when she’s bathing. She’s talkative but a little timid, and it’s always a surprise to hear the snorts and slurps coming from her, knowing this neat and precise personality, as she keeps her fur impeccably clean. She can overdo it though; being timid, when she can’t decide if she should run and hide she just has a bath, which I call, “When in doubt, wash” or “Fight or flight or wash my face”.

She does love to be petted and gives big, deep nose rubs, but as soon as it’s over she has to begin to bathe her entire body all over again. I try not to be insulted that she feels I’ve polluted her body with my human cooties.

Also being particular about her appearance and surroundings, I’ve always thought that Kelly, a very speckled tortoiseshell, was horrified at all those irregular spots all over her body and was always trying to organize them into some kind of order.


Art and Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

AfterDinnerNap-Etsy~~~

Feline Photographs from Portraits of Animals!

Bella's eyes certainly have it!
Bella’s eyes certainly have it!

These three really have to stop this sort of thing. I have work to do and I can’t be distracted by such serious cuteness. Mimi, Sunshine, Jelly Bean. Read more, and purchase.




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

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Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork

Thursday: New Merchandise

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

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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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