October Featured Artwork and Desktop Calendar: “Studio Window, Autumn”

I featured this painting as my desktop calendar back in 2015. Most of the leaf color in it is from the maple I had cut down earlier this year, and photos of the cats up in the “treehouse” studio while the leaves were turning in years past show up in my posts. I still miss the tree, and the parade of seasons in its leaves, so I thought I’d feature this painting again.

Besides how I miss the tree, this is also one of my favorite watercolors. I painted it without guidelines, let the colors blend in the trees, allowed shading the silhouettes and I’m particularly proud of how it all turned out.

And it’s also an image that is so dear to me—one of my cats on my studio windowsill. All the years I’ve been here I’ve loved my time in my studio, which was also once my foster room. I often remark how my cats enjoy spending time with me in my studio because they sense my own enjoyment of what I’m doing, and for frightened fosters not only can they sense that but I’m also in a typically non-verbal space, something they and all cats find very comfortable. Sharing my non-verbal self with animals, especially cats, has been one of my lifelong joys, and often a great comfort. My memories of cats sharing my studio with my felines, especially seeing them enjoy the view out the window, are very special. So for all those reasons I’m so happy to share this painting for the month of October.

From November 2014 when I created the sketch:

This really happened! Just this afternoon (Monday), and it’s both Mimi and Mewsette.

My studio is actually my spare bedroom, on the second floor. I call it “the treehouse” because outside the window are arching branches from my river birch coming in from the left and a tangle of branches reaching from my maple on the right, the neighbor’s dogwood as well, and behind most of it is my tall spruce. The house faces northwest, so in the mid to late afternoon the sun shines down on all those leaves, but the inside is in shadow; later the sun reaches to the windowsill and onto my drafting table.

I love to watch the change of daylight in all seasons, the pale greens of spring and dark greens of summer, the yellow, orange and red of autumn and the bare branches against the dark green of the spruce, and, of course, my cats. Today, first, Mimi joined me and sat on the windowsill to have a proper bath in preparation for an afternoon nap on my lap, and a little later Mewsette joined us and sat to watch the birds in the trees. They both sat in the same spot, but Mewsette is bigger, but Mimi turned her head the right way. So this is both of them.

I painted it later in the day, from photos and memory, applying the watercolor background first according to what I visualized—my trees are nowhere near that bright, only in my mind, but that is what I wanted, and the blue at the bottom for the cool shadow inside. The I referenced the photo for the feline figure, more or less, and the vase with brushes, more or less, since the cats and the vase with brushes are so familiar to me I barely needed the photos. I debated about the muntins in the window thinking they might be too harsh, but decided that was part of the charm of this old window, and would convey that idea to others who viewed it. My window has more bars, but they nearly crossed behind the feline face and went behind the brushes and I didn’t want that, so I moved them, keeping them a little off-center. I also used transparent layers of black instead of solid black as I have in other similar paintings—even though my first impression was of a silhouette, I could see it was not, and there was enough variation in the figures that I would leave some detail there.

And, as I like to say, that’s why we have art, so I can have it the way I want it. The doing of it ran very late because each layer of paint had to dry in between.

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A New Member Thank You

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 matted print of “Studio Window, Autumn” or choose from several other sketches, paintings or photos of cats and other subjects.

The New Member print is a signed digital print of “Studio Window, Autumn”. This print is 8″ x 11″ and is matted with a pure white mat 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, a greeting card and a note card, find this on Portraits of Animals. And if you are interested in the gift items I’m making with this art, like tiles or keepsake boxes, you can search Portraits of Animals for “studio window autumn” and you’ll find what’s available. I’ll also be featuring them here too.

Here are a few others of my cats on the studio windowsill.

In Afternoon Sun

Studio Guardians

In Window Light

Spring Window

Sun at Sunset

It’s also similar to Out the Front Door, and this painting was actually a runner up for featured artwork for last month and this month.

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This month’s desktop calendar

I’ve worked this image into a desktop calendar for you to enjoy and use for the entire month. Looking at the downloads from previous months and averaging out which dimensions fit which devices, I have reduced the number of variations from 12 to three. It was very time-consuming to create all the variations with new devices arriving all the time, so I have one for horizontal monitors/screens, one for square monitors/screens, and one that should fit the dimensions of nearly all mobile devices.

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

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Square monitors and screens

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Small Mobile Devices and Tablets

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Cell Phones and Smartphones

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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.

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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.

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Gifts featuring cats you know! Visit Portraits of Animals

Fine Art • Photography • Gifts • Greeting Cards • Books • Commissioned Portraits & Artwork

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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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