September Featured Artwork and Desktop Calendar: Hangin’ in the Kitchen

So based on photos and sketches, how much time do you think my cats spend hanging out in the kitchen? It’s about time I featured one of those sketches!

Giuseppe, Mr. Sunshine and Mimi hang out with me in the kitchen.

Often when I draw these five black cats, and even when I don’t but just visualize, I am visualizing their silhouette as a shape, but not paying any attention to their color. That may be stating the obvious seeing cats in every shade of pastel and watercolor and colored pencil and any other medium I have, but because they are solid and because they are black, I can start with them and go on to other ideas.

But I like their darkness and while I often use a blue or purple or other dark color instead of black so the deepest areas have their own brilliance, sometimes I really want pure black. There are many other ways than using a black medium such as ink or charcoal to draw them—and that’s just too easy, sometimes I want a challenge. And instead of the flat representations I often have, I wanted them to look a little more dimensional, as if their shapes lifted from the surface.

I was watching them in the kitchen as the five of them moved on and off the cabinet under the light in the middle of the room bathing themselves and each other, watching me, looking out the door and just engaging in feline meditation, seeing the deep black of their fur with just minimal highlights made by the light shining from directly above, and highlights in warm yellow tones. To catch this, I’d want the black to be about as solid as possible, and that’s easiest accomplished by starting with a black base. I decided to use a black sheet of my pastello paper.

Totally unrelated, I had been testing the points on my pastel pencils and had a sheet of brown paper with different colored lines sketched on it, and I liked how it looked. I decided I’d use this the next chance I got, and decided this was my chance.

The challenge, of course, is to NOT draw the cats, but to draw just their highlights and the background around them. I did end up outlining them, but that was because in watching them moving around I kept losing their shapes as I moved from Sunshine in the middle, Giuseppe on the left and Mimi on the right before I ran out of paper. Seems like I need a little more practice in this! I’m not sure why I used the green for the cabinet top when it wasn’t in my initial visual palette, keeping with yellows and blues because those were the most convenient pencils, but I like its brilliance.

And no matter the colors I used, they are strong shapes and have just enough dimension to them.

Mr. Sunshine is ignoring me and Mimi is washing her face, but Giuseppe is watching me sketch because the pencil is making exciting little scratching noises on the paper, kind of like a mousie.

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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 “Hangin’ in the Kitchen” or choose from several other sketches, paintings or photos of cats and other subjects.

The New Member print is a signed digital print of “Hangin’ in the Kitchen”. 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 “hangin” and you’ll find what’s available. I’ll also be featuring them here too.

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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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