Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Gouache · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Counting Cats


Counting Cats by Karen Gadient. Pastel, gouache, and digital painting. Many cats! A group of over twenty colorful cats in mostly cool colors with a bit of warm yellow and pink.

Counting Cats. Pastel, gouache, and digital painting.

The title says it! I started this in pastel on my desk and kept adding to it, finding cat after cat and simply going along. Added some more in gouache and and a bit of old watercolor before scanning it and doodling again while testing digital brushes.

I listen to audio dramas while I work (bluetooth earbuds are awesome things, I’ve only recently discovered) and can add detail for ages if the story is good. I have several artworks going and hop between them, depending on whether I think the current audio drama fits the color palette.

Such are the odd habits creatives develop while getting lost in their craft, I suppose! I’ve been working later at night again, too. I’m just a night owl and I might have to embrace it. Although, in summer, the early mornings are the only time of day here in Phoenix where I can venture outside and not immediately bake.

Still waiting for rain here. We’re setting some dangerous heat records. Staying indoors! Hope you’re enjoying July so far and that it’s more bearable where you are.

One cat just leads to another.
― Ernest Hemingway, Selected Letters 1917-1961

Art · Blogging · Cats

Contentment and the Art of Blogging

I don’t really use social media much these days. I share my #KaleidoSaturday once a week, use direct messages as a chat service, keep up with what little is shared from family outside of the one site I’ve never joined, and link to what I’ve posted here. That’s pretty much it. And I’m cool with it staying that way.

I think it’s a part of my current quest to simplify and find joy. I’m grateful for those I’ve met through social media, but I’m lucky most of my friends now happily reach out to me in other ways. I still love to read blogs―I find joy in that―and I want to be more active in the blogosphere again.

Can an artist be successful with just a blog and the real world? Maybe. I don’t know many artists finding their sales via social media anymore, anyway―it’s all so saturated. As for making contacts, I’ve already found my clan, as they say, and adding more to the party can certainly happen via blog and real life.

I’ve been pondering making blogging my main outlet. Although, unlike the olden days of LiveJournal, it’s not a locked-to-friends situation, so I’ll mind my personal notes!

Does my outlet idea mess with the logic of SEO and all the ‘you need to do this’ jazz? Oh, probably. But, eh. I didn’t pay attention to that with the first version of this blog and I was successful enough. I don’t want to speak with keywords in mind. I want to talk about whatever interests me (okay, sure―that includes CATS: keyword alert, woohoo) and find out what interests friends who follow along.

How are you with social media these days? What do you get from blogging?

Art · Cats · Color · Colored Pencil · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel · Watercolor

Floretta


Floretta by Karen Gadient. Pastel, acrylic, and and digital mixed media. A contented calico cat in a sunny garden of colorful flowers and plants.

Floretta. Pastel, watercolor, ink, colored pencil, and digital mixed media.

We’ve had visiting cats to our garden, most often a pair of them who live with our neighbors. They come to our place because we have a lot of shade compared to nearby yards and I feed the birds, which draws in plenty of cat entertainment. We even have lizards these days, plus butterflies and grasshoppers―pretty lively for a southern Arizona garden.

Oh, it’s not like the artwork, though! At the moment, our garden color comes from a few lonely roses and a megaton of lemons (our tree is extremely prolific―feel free to share lemon recipes). Still, it’s our little nature space. And our cats get to socialize with the neighbors. For now, anyway, since the blazing heat of summer is arriving quickly.

Well, off to gather more lemons and set out an offering of catnip for the locals.

Cheers!

Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there.
― Thomas Fuller

Acrylic · Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Colorful Cat Family

Colorful Cat Family by Karen Gadient, 2023

Colorful Cat Family. Pastel, acrylic, and and digital mixed media.

I’d say this one was done in some sort of ‘style’ to mimic a past artistic movement, but honestly―nope―it’s really not and I was simply having fun getting to know each cat as I added them to the portrait.

I remember getting family portraits done at Sears or JCPenney many, many years ago. Not sure if they still even do that. But I always felt for the photographer, who had to gather a distracted group together or wrangle a smile out of an anxious child.

Every year, my husband’s family gets the big group together for a photo and I’m pretty sure they’ve had to switch heads from a shot or two to be sure to have well-behaved or at least smiling kids. And also to fix adults who happened to blink at the wrong time!

And, so these cats are like us. Even the dad-cat has a sloppy bow-tie (but bowties are cool, even sloppy). Me, I guess I’d be the kitten in the back.

Did you ever do studio family portraits? Or festive family photos?

Art · Blogging · Cats · Inspiration · Photography

Blogging with Art and Cats

Hold on, really? Yep, it’s happened―I’m going back to blogging regularly. I even upgraded―talk about commitment! I can play around the CSS now, if I dare. So, I’m ready for a fresh start and will blog even if I don’t have a finished artwork to share.

Ultimately, blogging suits me best. I find ‘social’ media anything but social these days. I linger on Twitter and Instagram, but barely. Being old school, I still enjoy Reddit and forum-type places, mostly to read. I’m trying to figure out Mastodon. I think that might be it. And here. Why not here? Sure, that makes sense.

As you might have noticed, I paint and draw cats more than anything else these days. I’ve always been a cat lady. I was cat kid, simply obsessed with cats, drawing them all the time. I was even a cat professional, since I specialized in cats as a pet groomer. These days, three cats share our house and inspire/distract me.

Our three cats--tabby cat, black cat, ginger cat. Photo by Karen Gadient, 2022

But even with cat art, other things get included too. I love the natural world, our inner world, our planet, and beyond that to the stars. Color and sound and abstract notions, wherever my imagination might wander. Cats can go anywhere in art, and I’ll explore what that means to me and bring them there.

I also intend to blog with words, in honor of the writing blog I began with many years ago. My own social spot of media. I’ve made such great friends here.

That’s the news. I’ll do my best to follow through with it.

Also, after getting requests, I’m planning a setup where you can buy my prints without having to back-and-forth with me for a dozen emails about paper, size, and postage. Until that’s ready, email is still the way.

Thank you for following me and please reach out to say hello anytime!

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Tinsel and Patches

Tinsel and Patches by Karen Gadient, 2023

Tinsel and Patches. Pastel and digital mixed media.

For these cats, I decided to enhance a traditional pastel scan with a pair of digital brushes I edited in Affinity Photo. With the right brush dynamics, I was able to get something that closely matched the actual pastel and I’m really pleased with the results. Affinity isn’t primarily known for being a ‘painting’ app, but it can do some lovely things when you build your own brushes.

I used to make a lot of my own brushes and actions for Photoshop, but I defected from Adobe a few years ago to save money―which has worked out fine! I do miss my old actions (basically user-recorded tasks, like graphic macros) but I’ve found that Affinity’s LUTs (lookup tables, transforms colors) do the trick for me these days, because I mostly adjust color.

That might be a lot of digital geeking! The real-life pastels I prefer are Derwent’s pastel blocks and pencils. However, I suspect they’ve stopped making the blocks and I’ll to need to find a replacement eventually―or just use my digital brush.

Time for some more tea. Hope you’re having a good April!

Cats never strike a pose that isn’t photogenic.
― Lillian Jackson Braun

Acrylic · Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Mixed Media · Painting

Confetti Cats

Confetti Cats by Karen Gadient, 2023

Confetti Cats. Acrylic and digital mixed media.

Returning with more colorful cats after taking an internet break for the start of the new year. Weather is still cool here and I’m enjoying that before the searing dry heat settles in once again. In January, we went to see the opera Tosca at Arizona Opera, which was a wonderful experience! Perhaps my next painted cat will be singing an aria.

The approval of a cat cannot but flatter the recipient.
― Elizabeth Peters

Art · Cats · Color · Colored Pencil · Digital Painting · Mixed Media · Pastel

Cat Party

Cat Party by Karen Gadient, 2022

Cat Party. Pastel, pencil, and digital mixed media.

Another crowd of cats to count! Lately, I’ve been creating while listening to Big Finish audiobooks via my library, which keeps me doodling for hours. I have a fairly cozy studio room full of plants and a nearly-endless supply of tea, so I suspect these things will be my winter plans.

Hope you’re having a lovely start to November!

The TARDIS is like a cat, a bit slow to trust, but you’ll get there in the end.
― Doctor Who, “Hide”, 2013

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Three Blue Cats

Three Blue Cats by Karen Gadient, 2022

Three Blue Cats. Pastel and digital mixed media.

We have three cats, but none of them are actually blue. Still, I wanted to experiment with a limited palette and this was the result. Probably more winter than fall, but I think the next palette I try will be more autumnal. Hope you’ve been having a great October!

In the morning light,
You sleep despite my meow.
I stand on your face.
― Kate Miller-Wilson, “Good Morning Haiku From the Cat,” 20 Funny Haiku Poems, YourDictionary.com, 2020

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Graphite · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Cats at Dawn

Cats at Dawn by Karen Gadient, 2022

Cats at Dawn. Pastel, graphite, and digital mixed media. I’ve hidden a lot of cats in this painting. How many can you find?

I finally decided to give WordPress another chance and will see what I can pull together for somewhat of a fresh start. I’ll also be making more prints of my work, which I’m very excited about, once I settle on a new printing service.

I have a lot of (read: far too much) artwork in various stages of being finished and I’ve been experimenting with different techniques while going through my overgrown supply collection. While my subject of cats is constant, the style and media changes.

Art, as always, is a great distraction from the woes of the world.

So, with that, I hope you’re all doing well and hanging in there too! Hard to believe it’s already nearly October.

Luckily, I’m blessed with a well-developed sense of absurdity—it’s what saved me. ― John Baldessari

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Ink · Mixed Media · Painting · Watercolor

Sleeping Cat

Sleeping Cat by Karen Gadient, 2022

Sleeping Cat. Ink, watercolor, and digital mixed media.

Time got away from me, and it’s been an age since I’ve posted. I’m sure I don’t have explain to most of you that life has been strange these last few years. I’m here, though, and I try to keep up on reading blogs, even if I haven’t shared much. Outside of my offline day-to-day, I’ve been sketching and painting cats in various semi-abstract ways. Dogs too, sometimes. Animals have a way of soothing the soul, as does playing with art supplies.

I hope you’re well and happy!

Another note: I’ve had some issues with WordPress lately, with some tasks being hit-or miss. Also, I haven’t been able to like your posts in any desktop browsers (I ‘like’ and then it’s unliked if I go back and look), only in my phone app. Given I have wrist issues, the phone isn’t my go-to, but it’s something and it usually works. All this makes me feel like a dinosaur, alas. I plan to change things around soon, so fingers crossed. Try, try againand make more tea!

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. —  Havelock Ellis

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Flowers · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel · Watercolor

Nettie

Nettie by Karen Gadient, 2022

Nettie. Pastel, watercolor, and digital mixed media.

Started a watercolor, got crazy with my pastels, and then cleaned up the scan digitally. Had a lot of fun with this one!

I’ve been finding the newest version of WordPress much more of a hassle to post. I must be getting old, because the changes are so annoying. I couldn’t get a post preview, so it’ll be a surprise even to me how it looks.

Hope the new year has been treating you well!

One reason that cats are happier than people is that they have no newspapers. ― Gwendolyn Brooks

Art · Cats · Colored Pencil · Flowers · Ink · Mixed Media · Painting · Watercolor

Josephine

Josephine by Karen Gadient, 2021

Josephine. Ink, watercolor, crayon, colored pencil, and pastel.

A regal kitty exploring a mysterious garden.

Best wishes for a happy start to 2022!

Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not―self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives. ― Pam Brown

Art · Cats · Colored Pencil · Graphite · Mixed Media · Painting · Pastel

Benny

Benny by Karen Gadient, 2021

Benny. Graphite, pastel, and colored pencil.

I rediscovered my little pan of Viarco’s ARTGRAF watercolour graphite that I hadn’t used much in recent years. In past posts, I’d used it for sketchbook work and in a few my old FingerPaintingFriday pieces.

This time, I drew a cheerful cat and an organic, festive background. 🙂

It’s amazing how quickly this year has gone by.
I hope you’ve had a good November so far!

The smallest feline is a masterpiece. ― Leonardo da Vinci (attributed)

Art · Cats · Color · Digital Painting · Flowers · Painting

Periwinkle

Periwinkle by Karen Gadient, 2021

Periwinkle. Digital painting.

I’ve really been enjoying doodling with circles and other shapes, and my favorite subjects lately are cats and plants. This is my first attempt at combining these elements and I hope it makes you smile as much as I loved creating it.

This year is passing quickly. Happy September!

I take care of my flowers and my cats. And enjoy food. And that’s living. ― Ursula Andress