Daily Sketch Reprise: Self-portrait With Kublai for Hug Your Cat Day

One more cat hug on Hug Your Cat Day! This is Kublai, the cat who loved hugs, who gave hugs to everyone he met, and taught me to love hugs too! His favorite pastime was to leap up and throw his arms around my neck and bury his face in my hair, even when he was a tiny former barn kitten. Now that’s a cat hug. And a cat I’ll never forget.

This image may look familiar. My profile image on Facebook, LinkedIn and a few other places, it’s a charcoal a sketch of me holding Kublai, called, not surprisingly, “Self-portrait with Kublai”. I sketched it when I participated in an art exhibit with the Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators in 2004 and needed an image of myself to include in the catalog; most of us either had or decided to do self-portraits.

As the summer wore on in the months before Kublai died, I had a friend take a few photos of us, and as Kublai was in the final stages of some wasting illness I was shocked at what he looked like in the photos (at the end of this post is one of the photos from that day). I decided that I liked the pose, but I’d paint him in the way I had been picturing him. I never got around to the painting and unfortunately didn’t have the time when the exhibit came up, but I quickly did a little sketch of us from one of the photographs for the show catalog. I think I probably like it better than a painting.

I’ve been hugging cats all day—also read Daily Photo Reprise: Hugging My Cookie for Hug Your Cat Day and Daily Photo: Hugging Mimi on Hug Your Cat Day.

Click here to find out how you can help homeless cats and get a gift certificate!

Click here to see other daily sketches.

For a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Cat Art and Prints” section.

Read about the reason for the daily sketches in Two Years of Daily Sketches.

And download your free desktop wallpaper calendar for computer or mobile, usually based on a daily sketch.

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 this book in my Etsy shop.

Browse some rescued cats and kittens!

Subscribe to The Creative Cat e-newsletter for specials on exclusively feline-themed art and merchandise.

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile 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.

© 2014 | 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!

—

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | ETSY SHOP | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | STUMBLEUPON | GOOGLE+ | EMAIL

HOME