Meet Miko and Sasha

Meet Miko and Sasha, half-sisters but full-bred Himalayan kitties, and the center of life for their cat daddy for all of their years together. Miko came first, and she was such a joy that when she was still young he decided to adopt another kitty and a friend for Miko.

I had a wonderful time researching the Himalayan breed and meeting Himalayan cats at cat shows for background information (twist my arm, make me read about cats and go to cat shows), and it did offer me specific information on colors of fur and eyes and on body shape. Even if I don’t get to meet the subjects, it’s always helpful to see and feel and hold an animal of a similar breed before I start to work. But while Sasha had the same parents, though born in a later litter, even with the same parents and bloodlines the difference between the two girls was surprising and endearing.  Miko was decidedly the older sister, and Sasha the little wild child even to the differences in their fur—Miko was about as smooth as a Himalayan can be, poised, crossing her paws, while Sasha’s fur was always a little wild and she was ready for action.

Their masks were different shapes, their ears were set just a little differently, partly by attitude, and the color and texture of their fur, while actually the same, looked quite different because it laid just a little differently to reflect the individual personalities.

With a stack of photos we determined what the portrait would look like, showing their faces, of course, but also their paws and tails as fondly-remembered features. In several photos they are sitting by the door you see looking outside, and because they loved that door to the outside so much we decided to use that as the backdrop, but to turn them around to face us which would accommodate all the features we wanted to see.

I met Miko and Sasha’s parents some time after the two girls had passed, so I never had a chance to meet them, and I thank Deb Chebatoris of Chartiers Custom Pet Cremation for the referral.

A little background

I’ve completed a few portraits in the past few years that I have not featured here because of the timing of the portraits. In the case of Miko and Sasha, I met with their people, unintentionally, of course, the night before Peaches died in October 2010. Normally I start on portraits right away but I really can’t work with much focus after a loss, especially if my subject is feline, so I got a later start than I had intended in assembling photos and getting my basic image done before I even got to paper. Then my mother was gravely ill and passed away, and it was March, 2011 before I had any significant work done. By that time I had forgotten details of our conversations and needed a refresher as I discovered I had gotten the two girls confused in their initial rendering.

I worked my way through more details, remodeled my studio and got new pastels which helped immensely, then discovered that my customers were not getting my e-mail updates at all. We did finally connect and I carefully passed along more updates, but it wasn’t until just before Christmas 2011 that they finally got their portrait! I am grateful for their patience, though I know it wore thin.

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Read about other recent commissioned portraits here on The Creative Cat.
Read about how I create commissioned portraits.
Visit my website to see portraits of my cats, commissioned cats, commissioned dogs, people and a demonstration of how I put a portrait together from photos.

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 purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.