Painting Cats

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I had several cat dreams.  The dreams involved fun adventures with my tortoise shell cat, Loma.  In the dreams Loma did everything with nonchalance and aplomb.  And the outstanding thing was, she could communicate with me telepathically.  

In the best dream Loma was swimming underwater in our fish bowl. Her fur was floating around her. It was such a great image I had to do a painting.  It is the only painting that still survives from my 10 year hiatus. (I think I attempted about five or six.)  The painting hangs in my daughter's room.

Later, I read that because of a high degree of formality and reserve in 17th Century Japan, people could not be direct about certain things, especially with the opposite sex. So, male doctors developed an odd way of determining whether a woman was pregnant or not.  The doctor would ask the patient if she was having dreams about cats!!!  

Ha!  So there I was, unwittingly,  three centuries later, a perfect patient for the 17th Century. It just goes to show, you can take the lady out of Japan, but you can't take the Japan out of the lady.

"Mei Mei"

This is Mei Mei.  She is my friend, MBK's cat that just passed away.  Mei Mei is kicking my butt.  My only explanation is that cat's planes are all soft.  They are not as sculptural as dogs.  They start out kind of soft, but the longer I paint, and I like to really paint stuff to death, the softness eventually turns into concrete.  I have scraped the whole thing off twice so far.  

Poor Mei Mei. 

version 2 getting better

version 1 Yikes!!!