Daily Photo: The Tail Hold
Just before Sienna fell asleep. She has a habit of wrapping her tail around things to hold her in place.
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From Instagram in 2025
I finished all the work and got my sites back online at the end of May last year, so only another week or two!
MAY 12
Apparently the divas want breakfast in bed.
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From Custom Pet Memorial Votives
Custom Pet Memorial Gift Special Discount through May
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From the Back Yard and Beyond
From around this date in past years
Separate Baskets, Same Expressions, 2024
Sienna and Hamlet at the same stage of woke-up-to-supurrvise-me. They are in separate baskets but somehow their faces lined up, as do their expressions. Guess I’m doing it wrong. Whatever it is I’m doing. Either that or I’m intolerably dull.
Don’t miss scrolling down to see some other basket cat collections from previous years.
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Featured Daily Sketch: Blue-Purple Cats, May 23, 2013
I might come up with a better name for this if I took some time, but the blue highlights and purple shadows were what inspired me about Giuseppe and Mewsette atop the wardrobe by the window, though after the sun had moved away and the light was only reflected, mostly off the sky, and very cool. They were bathing, lazily, sometimes licking themselves and sometimes each other. Giuseppe’s paw above Mewsette’s head looks a little confusing, but it was kind of confusing to me!
I did the watercolor sketch first, just the lightest blue as a wash that laid out the two shapes together. When that was still damp but had no puddles, I added a light wash of purple in the darker areas. I let that dry completely, then added a heavier layer of richer, less dilute purple in the deepest shadows. Then I added the ink outlines, this time using one of my felt-tip drawing pens.
Of course, they had moved after the first quick blue wash but not so much that I couldn’t see my original visual in their postures, and I had my reference photo. Poor Mewsette’s lovely long, thick tail literally got short shrift when I couldn’t fit the whole thing in the sketch—it’s nearly touching the bottom edge of the paper.
Purchase a print
I sold this sketch matted and framed, but I have prints available on Portraits of Animals—that’s often how I determine which sketches to have prints made from. Prints are made in archival inks on Epson Cold Press Watercolor Paper, Hot Press Digital Giclee Paper or Artist Canvas.
“Blue Purple Cats” along with “Their Faces in the Sun” made their way to the same home, one of our friends in Canada, who has also purchased a few other sketches.
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From the Back Yard and Beyond
First Fruits, Wild Strawberries
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From Portraits of Animals
A Small Still Life, Small Roses
From around this date in past years
My Basket Runneth Over, 2020
Bella wants to know if I’ll just go away and let them nap. Giuseppe and Jelly bean agree.
There are three black cats in this basket, though with all the legs and ears it’s hard to tell. In short order they tucked themselves in and started slowly falling…
…asleep.
The views from above were just as amusing.
And from the back yard…
Make a splash! Mr. Cardinal dunks his head then comes up for air.
From around this date in past years
Sienna Takes Over My Desk, 2019
Sienna has stolen all my pens and trashed my desk, and now she’s going to have a nap on top of all of it. You can see by her tail that she is very pleased with herself.
Photos from years past.
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Overfloweth, 2018
They started out curled up on the pillows, but as the day warmed and the sun came around to that window my cats runneth over with relaxation.
Before that, however, they were sleeping on the pillows with their paws all tangled. I was a little surprised—this is Sienna’s safe place and she spends most of the day on the pillows. Basil always liked it too, though, and as you’ll see below she was also joined by several others. Sienna likes Basil, for the most part, and Basil likes everyone.
Then even more tangled.
Then a sleepy double high-five.
Six cats were on the bed, all paired up.
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From last year on this day…
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Three Heads Together…2017
Sunshine, Giuseppe and Jelly Bean can get themselves in a lot of trouble putting their heads together and trying to think out some plan.
And sometimes they just fall asleep.
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From last year on this day…
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Not Camouflaged, 2015
Mimi may think she’s camouflaged behind this rusted flower pot, and I’ll let her think that
We had our “time out” and I photographed yet more flowers while Mimi explored under the deck, which did not make for good photos since it’s dark and so is she, but she enjoyed herself and apparently read all the latest news that’s not published in public on the forsythia, if you get what I mean.
Below she bears that same expression she had on the upstairs window a few weeks ago, typical of Mimi when someone is bothering her sunshine.
Then Boo, it started raining! So I’m sharing a few more pretty photos from yesterday. Everything is suddenly so colorful!
I promise I’ll share photos of the other house panthers too! Below, from last year, Mimi has a heart to heart with Giuseppe.
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From last year on this day…
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Feline Conversation, 2014
I was enchanted by this little exchange between Mimi and Giuseppe. Often we watch them and think they are cute and affectionate with each other, but I know that each move, each touch, each gesture, eye movement, whisker swish, like a ballet, nothing is wasted, each has meaning in the exchange between the two. This conversation was so direct, Mimi sitting atop her box like the queen visited by her son the prince, or like the goddess visited by her worshipper, but face to face, a look, then a touch from Giuseppe to Mimi, then a glance, then a touch by Mimi for Giuseppe, then a pause, and on. At the end they looked at me as if they had no idea I was there, as they may not have.
Perhaps I’ve been reading a little too much Rumi lately, but I pulled my copy of Coleman Barks’s translations of Rumi’s poems entitled The Glance: Songs of Soul Meeting, “the glance,” this mystical experience that occurs in the meeting of the eyes of the lover and the beloved, parent and child, friend and soul mate, a little explored theme in Rumi’s poetry. From The Glance, a portion of the poem “What is the Heart”:
What is the heart? It is not human
and it is not imaginary. I call it
you…
Below I have a slideshow of nine photos from their exchange.
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Sienna’s most famous pose. Find the keepsake here and the tile here.
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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Weekly schedule of features:
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What an endearing habit!
It’s like a paper clip, and interesting that she always finds a place where she can do this unless she’s inside of something, like a basket.