The Catland Chronicles: Further Pictures from my Retrospective! Lydia. \~~^..^ (c) Lydia 2007.

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The lady is still, like, really busy and we STILL don't know what's going on with her. Flat Cat is sulking---his ears have been back for like days and he won't blog--- and Sam has been holed up meditating 24/7 because he thinks the lady is going to be going away, who knows for how long, and when that happens, he really can't deal. I don't like it either, but in my most recent life (when I was a Beatnik), the lady who lived with me was always disappearing and then coming back when I'd pretty much given up on her. She used to leave me outside to fend myself when she was away, but that's a whole, like, other story. The point is: you have to adapt. Then you can, like, punish her later when she gets back.

It's like Sam always is saying: "It's a wise cat that knows there's always more kibble where that came from." But when the lady and the man start acting like they might leave, seems like he can't remember to be all philosophical and stuff.

MY RETROSPECTIVE!!!

Anyways: the lady said I could have another retrospective since Tuxedo Boy is boycotting the blog after she went to all the trouble to set it up for him. Which, you know, fine with me. I've kind of come around to thinking that the only I am going to get recognition for the artiste I am is if I put my stuff out there, so here it is:

Yoga1small "INWARD FACING CAT---A STUDY IN GREEN." In my last set of pictures there was a picture of Sam doing one of his yoga positions (because, like, even though he goes ON a lot about religion and stuff he is really good at cat yoga which is way harder than it probably looks).

This pose, inward facing cat, is really hard. You have to get your head all the way between your legs and you have to curl your tail just right, which is hard to do in this position. Plus it is really hard to do this pose when the lady and the man are around because they don't understand that it is a mystical expression of Catfulness and stuff, and they tell you to stop licking your bum, which is so, like, rude. That's not what it's about at all and when somebody says that it ruins the whole thing.

It is a very sacred posture and I am trying to learn to, like, master it myself but it is really hard to do with Flat Cat around because he gets really jealous being as how he is too fat to be able to do it himself and keeps running up to claw my tail, so I can't concentrate.

Lydia2_2 GREY AND WHITE CAT---A STUDY IN OILS. This is a self-portrait with me as the model. As you can see, the oil paints are used to good effect here to show the sort of elegant white ruff of fur across my breastbone and---but subtly, right?---the grape green tint of my eyes. Everything else in the painting is grey and right to make them stand out (but, like, SUBTLY). Like I said before, the Cat's eyes are the Windows to the Soul and my Soul is very shy and aloof and, like, reclusive; so hello, I don't raise my windows for just anybody, you know? So they're sort of half-closed and all full of mystery and unspoken promise because I am fully a Cat of Mystery, so.

And it's subtle because when you first look, the pose is just kind of pedestrian and then you think to yourself like, "Oh. A cat. Whatever." But then you get the sort of subliminal effect of the secretive half-shut eyes and then you suddenly feel the full effect of the Subject's (me, but you wouldn't know that if you were looking at it in, like, an art gallery) Mystique and Veiled Mysteries and are all, "Whoah! I can't take my eyes off this picture and I don't know why!" And, like, you want to reach out and stroke the Cat's soft fur but you can't because it's just an oil painting, which leaves you all dimly unsatisfied and filled with a strange restlessness. And that's, like, Art, you know?

Afternoonchat THE INDIFFERENT CAT. I used Sam as the model for this one. He was sitting on the top of one of our Cat Trees and he is really looking at the lady but you can't tell this in the picture, right? And even though he's really Siamese and not white, I decided to experiment with white because it's, like, the hardest color of all to paint. So even though it is mostly blue, to the eye it is totally a white cat staring off into the distance in a sort of haughty and, like, indifferent manner. You can see how I used shades of rose (sort of coral, pinkish lavender, and rose madder) to emphasize the whiteness (really blue but it "reads" as white, yeah?) of the Cat and make him stand out from the background. The lady said that the lamp in the background is Particularly Fine and that I did a good job with textures, which like, Duh; they're my specialty, you know?

The lady says this one and the next one remind her of this painting Picasso, so whatever. Just so you know, I never heard of this Picasso till today, and wasn't copying or anything. Catbottom12

THE HUMILIATION OF A STUMPY TAIL. This next one you've seen before as a photograph, right, but I redid it as a pastel picture in the same so-called "Picasso" technique as the one above. It's that same picture of Flat Cat hiding under a chair (because he is so dumb he thinks if he can't see the lady the lady can't see him and also because he is too fat to fit all the way under). So I wouldn't hurt his stupid feelings which the lady says is "unkind" I made the Cat in this picture white

It is a picture that would tell a story even if you didn't already know all about Flat Cat. In this picture the Cat (a white one, so not really Flat Cat) is hiding under a chair because he or she (you can't tell just from a tail) is humiliated to have such a short, stumpy tail. So it's a kind of tragic picture of a Cat's shame brought upon him (or her) by the fact that everyone laughs at his (or her) tail. Which nobody actually does except me (the lady thinks Flat Cat's tail is sooooo cute), but is what would happen if the lady and the man weren't sort of goofy. Art is supposed to be bold and ruthless and to take no prisoners, not just to make everything look all sentimental and rose-colored and all.

Anyway, from a technical angle you can see that I am really getting the hang of this white-cat painting business. I tried to use a lot of colors in this picture because the lady likes colors and also to make the snowy whiteness of the Cat (Flat Cat's backside and tail are really black) stand out from the rug.

So anyway, that's it for today, hope you enjoyed it, leave a comment if you want to...

Lydia \~~^..^

Comments

Very nice paintings ! I just finished some too and put them on Keyhole blog for Photo Hunters. Don't worry about my cats, Mr. Gattino stays home and will spoil them to dead ! I even suspect that from time to time they like that I am going away, because then EVERYTHING is allowed ! Yes it's almost criminal ! But of course they will ignore me for a while when I come back !

Posted by: Gattina | May 29, 2007 at 12:55 AM