Why paint your cat? After all cats are beautiful creatures if you want to appreciate the appearance of a feline, you look at the cat not at a painting.

To capture your pet at a particular age, in a particular pose, in a particular place. To have a permanent reminder of your companion when she has moved on to feline afterlife. To give as a gift to a fellow cat lover.

So you figure how hard can it be to turn out a pleasing semblance of your moggy? You are no Van Gough, but you know how to handle a paint brush. You have all the materials that you need in order to paint your cat, the paints, brushes, stuff for cleaning, you even have a home made easel. Boy, it sure is going to be fun to paint your cat.

There she is, curled up asleep by the window, a look of cat contentment upon her face and the sunlight giving her coat an extra gloss. What a magnificent painting of your cat you are going to produce. Quietly you set everything up, you have your canvas propped on your easel and your paintbrush in hand. You turn to face your subject, and...

She's gone. Your little darling had been snoozing in that spot for most of the morning and now that you are ready to produce your masterpiece, she decides that someplace else is where she needs to be! Well, she is not going to get away with it, you have decided to paint your cat, and that is just what you are going to do.

You search for her. Eventually you find your feline subject siting at the top of the stairs without a care in the world. Scooping her up, you carry her back to the sunlit window so she may cooperate with you and resume her pose. But cats don't cooperate. She paces up and down, and you know that the only thing stopping her from making a bolt is the fact that you are betwixt her and the door. The fact

You consider for a moment the possibility of restraining her, like Guliver lashed to the ground by the little people. No chance, no chance whatsoever. So what to do? Of all the creatures on this earth the cat is the last one to be told what to do.

You conclude that the only thing that you can do to paint your cat, is to forget about producing a detailed precise painting. You will paint your feelings about your cat. This will not be a long drawn out process, get it on the canvass, let your subconscious communicate the essence of the feline! Looking at your cat and not your canvass, you start to paint. Rapidly you slash with your brush, you don't worry about the colors that you use corresponding exactly to those of you cat, it is the feelings that they represent that is important.

Meanwhile, your cat looks on bemused.

At last you are finished. Time to inspect your art work, you turn and look and your jaw drops. Well it could be some kind of animal, those lines in purple do seem to represent a tail. And that is an eye, no mistake about that, but whatever eye it is, it's not your cat's eye!

Ah well! At least you tried to paint your cat. Don't think of it as a failure, after all you did produce something, and who knows, your cat at least, may have enjoyed the experience! Meanwhile, your cat has resumed its perfect pose, asleep by the window.

Larry Chamberlain is a lifelong cat lover and webmaster of http://www.best-cat-art.com Cat art posters, art prints, cat calendars and cat collectibles. Great cat gifts for yourself or your cat loving friends

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