Monday, March 18, 2024
cat artworkcat paintingDaily Featuredesktop calendarfeatured artworkmarketplacemr peachThursdaywatercolor

Featured Artwork and May Desktop Calendar: Peach Begonias

watercolor of orange cat with begonias at window
Peach Begonias, watercolor, 8 x 8, 2023 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Peach begonias? But they look pink…but the kitty’s name was Mr. Peach and he’s surrounded by my overwintering begonias one of many photos I took in March 2007. “Peach Begonias” was my shorthand for this series of photos taken over a few weeks that I knew I’d want to paint someday. And someday has arrived!

As I mentioned with Nikka’s Jupiter Ball, this photo also stayed on my mind and through the years I created several composites of Mr. Peach in different positions. I fostered him from February to July that year while a friend and her husband tried to determine if the cause of his allergies was Mr. Peach. It was not, so he returned to them, but I truly enjoyed having a ginger cat in the house, especially a big mellow roly-poly orange cat.

He sat in this window to watch the birds at the feeder every single morning he was here and I liked just about every position he sat in. I liked when he sat sideways facing me, and I liked when he sat with his back to me, and all the angles of his face and head. I really wanted a pretty painting, colorful and bright, cats and flowers. In the end, after all that compositing of individual photos, I liked his profile best, and how his eye is highlighted by the light from outdoors. I also had my choice of begonias as I turned them and pinched them back as they grew in the light from the window. By the last few photos I took the trees had started to leaf out and the morning light was distinctly yellow and slightly greenish. It’s nice being able to put it all together into the scene I like best. I think that was somewhere around 2009-2010, after I had painted Darling Clementine and wanted to do the detailed watercolor thing again..

And, of course, there’s a story…

I was so eager to paint this scene that I had printed out my composite and traced it onto watercolor paper—twice! Somehow both were tucked away and lost for a while, but at some point in the last few years I decided I would paint this as a gift to my friend after she had lost Mr. Peach. I stopped early into it; in my photos and in life his eyes were a soft light green, but in her memory they were orange. Packed away again, it just took this last round of reorganizing when I pulled out portfolios zipped up with finished art stored inside in pads of sketch and tracing paper that I found both of the sketches and decided this time I’d paint him with a green eye for me, then paint his eye in orange tones for her and give her the painting. She has purchased many paintings from me, among them After Dinner Nap and Waiting on Christmas Night, which she purchased for one of her granddaughters who is very aware of art to celebrate her black kitty.

watercolor of orange cat with begonias at window
Peach Begonias, watercolor, 8 x 10, 2023 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I had always planned this painting in the format you see above. I worked with each element to give it some flow, the heavy parts in the center and the color distributed to lead the eye all over the painting in a swirl, and Mr. Peach has a good gaze out the windows. But after I’d painted and took a few initial photos of it to determine how best to crop it, I also like the more square version of it that I have at the top. That eliminates the heavy dark area on the right and centers in on Mr. Peach. His face is far more obvious. I sent the two images out to friends to see what they thought and all four chose the smaller cropped version. Interesting how that works! I will use the wider version for greeting cards, adding it to my set of Feline Fine Art Cards.

 

A New Member Thank You

Register for an account on Portraits of Animals and get a free matted print of “Peach Begonias” or choose from several other sketches, paintings or photos of cats and other subjects.

This New Member print is a signed digital print of my ink and watercolor “Peach Begonias”. Prints are made in archival inks on Epson Art Paper. This print is 8″ x 8″ and matted to fit a 12″ x 12″ 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!


This month’s desktop calendar, Peach Begonias

I’ve worked this image into a desktop calendar for you to enjoy and use for the entire month.

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, download the image to your gallery then choose it as your wallpaper—this is slightly different on all devices.
Horizontal and HD monitors and screens
Desktop calendar 2560 x 1440 for HD and wide screens.
Desktop calendar 2560 x 1440 for HD and wide screens.

. . .

Square monitors and screens
Desktop calendar, 1280 x 1024 for square monitors.
Desktop calendar, 1280 x 1024 for square monitors.

. . .

Small Mobile Devices and Tablets
Desktop calendar, 600 x 800 for iPad, Kindle and other readers.
Desktop calendar, 600 x 800 for iPad, Kindle and other readers.

. . .

Cell Phones and Smartphones
Desktop calendar, 330 x 700 for cell phones.
Desktop calendar, 330 x 700 for cell 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.


Click here to see daily sketches, click here to see daily photographs

click here to see other artwork featured on The Creative Cat

or visit Feline Artwork on my main website.

If you are interested in a print of this image, check 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.


Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

AfterDinnerNap-Etsy

Fine ArtPhotographyGiftsGreeting CardsBooksCommissioned Portraits & 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.


Subscribe to my e-newsletter

Subscribe to The Creative Cat Preview E-newsletter.


© 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!

 
PORTRAITS OF ANIMALS WEBSITE
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | LINKEDIN | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE| EMAIL | PATREON

HOME

 

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.

2 thoughts on “Featured Artwork and May Desktop Calendar: Peach Begonias

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this:
Verified by ExactMetrics