Thursday, March 28, 2024
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May Featured Artwork and Desktop Calendar: The Sunny Upstairs Window

pastel sketch of two cats by window
“The Sunny Upstairs Window”, 6″ x 8″, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

Years ago a gallery wouldn’t accept one of my paintings of cats because they “didn’t show cats”. They didn’t mean that one particular painting because they pointed out that it was in good Impressionist style, but because art of cats had become so stylized and cute that no matter the actual style cats as a subject were not considered “real art”. One of my goals with painting cats, along with capturing that one incredible moment to remember in all its detail, was to paint and sketch cats as I do any other subject like a vase of flowers or the landscape, to move away from stylized media and themes and to present them as a subject for fine art. I like to loosen up their shapes, use non-representational color, just capture my “impression” of a scene.

If you’ve been following my sketches for any length of time, you’ve probably seen gradual changes that begin with a particular sketch—adding new media, using a new color palette, finding a new style, even using a new and different paper. In my everyday life as an artist I took the time to experiment far less often, in part because I did less art, and because my visualization and aesthetic senses moved more slowly. With my daily practice everything happened faster, and with more daring I’ll add.

Up to this point I’d done most of my sketches away from my studio, with my toy bag full of older, lower-quality and well-used pencils, pastels, charcoal, pens and even sketch pads. The sketches were just for practice after all, and I didn’t want to use “good” materials on what was basically a quick and temporary item.

But leading up to this with oil pastels and ink and watercolor, this particular morning I picked up my imported pastel paper and my really good pastels and quickly came up with this sketch, and it was truly inspired and enhanced by using the better materials. The two girls have such dimension and interest all over their tiny figures, the light streams in and changes tone and color just as natural light tends to do, and even the shadows have dimension. Let that be a lesson to me.

. . . . . . .

Mimi and Mewsette enjoy the morning sunshine in front of the sunniest window in the house.

Friday morning was the first of several completely sunny mornings after a row of somewhat dark and rainy ones. All the cats were gravitating to the back of the house, facing east, as the sun streamed in the back door into the kitchen, and in the windows at the top of the stairs and in the bathroom.

I also recently took all the geraniums outside, so this top level of the wardrobe is now accessible, and a perfect spot to enjoy a sunny morning.

In my studio for part of the morning, I used the very Italianate Fabriano Tiziano Pastello drawing paper and a small set of my Sennelier pastels. Typically, what I have easily available downstairs in my toybox of art materials is not this quality of stuff, but in my studio I can play around with other things.


A New Member Thank You

pastel sketch of two cats by window
The Sunny Upstairs Window, pastel © B.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 “Holly on the Rocker” or choose from several other sketches, paintings or photos of cats and other subjects.

The New Member print is a signed digital print of “The Sunny Upstairs Window”. This print is 8 x 11 matted to fit an 11 x 14 frame.

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!

Or purchase the original or a different print or item

I also offer a variety of digital and canvas prints, find this on Portraits of Animals.

Greeting Cards

You can also order this image as a greeting card.

 


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.

. . .

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.

. . .

Cell Phones and Smartphones

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.


Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

AfterDinnerNap-Etsy

Fine ArtPhotographyGiftsGreeting CardsBooksCommissioned Portraits & Artwork

framed pastel painting of two cats at window
“The Sunny Upstairs Window”, pastel © B.E. Kazmarski

I like rich colors, and with the colors in this painting I knew the combination I wanted for the original, above. I’ll also frame a print in this combination, available from the main listing for this artwork.

 



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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