Hi Friends!
Today has been a weird, slightly frustrating day so far, and then I drank too much coffee, admittedly decaf, but still feel a little strange. The sun is shining but it is very windy, but a good day to get the washing outside to dry. I expect later we will light the stove as it’s pretty cold when not in the sun, and it will be colder later. So let’s see what we have today… I am hoping it is the penultimate page but that depends on whether I can finish one last page for tomorrow! “Someone” was sick on the rug in my art room today and I don’t know which one, though it might be more likely to be Miss Lily, it could just as easily be her brother who has issues of his own. No one is owning up to it, and depending on how things go today, I may be back at the vets tomorrow! So if this turns out to be the last page for September, thank you all so much for joining in and for commenting on my posts also. We all appreciate comments! I hope you’ve enjoyed the theme as much as I have and that you perhaps continue to include pages about cats, books and tea, as part of your regular journalling! 🙂 [edit Saturday 30th – this did turn out to be my final page for September, due to Miss Lily being poorly again today, so no time for anything else. ]
Today’s Art . . .
Today’s art is another page for my theme on Art Journal Journey for this month – Books, Cats and Tea, which are three of my very favourite things. Here comes page 22, a cat, book but no tea page…
Last night (Thursday) I sketched out this cat because I wanted to use all those little ginger cats (cat food packaging) but needed something to fill in the rest of the page, so why not a big cat. However, weirdly, I was not thinking about making it a ginger cat, it was going to be a brown tabby, so I did a lot of dark pencil that I had to remove today.
After sketching him last night, I thought I would start colouring it in with coloured pencils while I sat on the sofa and watched Netflix. By this stage I had already realised that it should be a ginger tabby, and did quite a lot of colouring in low light which resulted in my cat being very orange, though I couldn’t tell that at the time lol. I was thinking this could be a nice winter activity to do in front of the fire but if I do that then I am going to need better lighting!
When I was reorganising some shelves last week, I found these sleeves for a couple of book boxed sets. The books were not in them but I think I held on to the cardboard because it was interesting. Since they are book-related, I thought I would used some of it for my page today and I like how it looks with the orange kitties. This book series is one I stopped reading years ago, the first few books were fun but then they just got really repetitive so I stopped reading and I don’t recommend them.
These kitties btw come from packets of chicken flavoured Lick-e-Lix, which is a yogurt-based cat treat and it’s very useful if you need to give medications or to persuade your kitty to eat something if they are refusing regular food. I had fussy cut seven of them from seven packets and glued them together.
When I was finished painting the cat today – coloured pencils and watercolour – I glued the book cardboard down on the right side, but only at the bottom so that it opens downwards, and glued the seven ginger kitties to it so that they open out to the right, giving me two lots of journalling spaces for later.
Here’s how it looks when all the other bits are folded out the way. You can see all my pencil colour testing scribbles on the right side. That was no help whatsoever in the dark lol.
So there are EIGHT cats on this page, so what other suitable quote could I have than – One Cat Just Leads To Another – by Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was a big cat lover and had several of his own, which is probably why he said what he did lol.
I nearly forgot about these little lucky cat erasers I found in a drawer. They are too nice to use (probably why they are still in a drawer) but I think they deserve some attention for being so cute.
Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading and Happy Journalling!
Ingredients
my handmade journal, watercolour paper, book boxed set cardboard, cat food cats, Paperartsy fresco paint, watercolour, polychromos pencils, neocolour IIs, glue, pencil, black pen, white pen,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – Books, Cats and Tea
Sorry to read about Miss Lily, but that final entry using your theme turned out fantastic. I was so impressed by the way you hid the author’s name you didn’t like with the cats. That made a colorful background, though. LOVED the cat. Beautifully drawn. Thanks for this amazing final entry you gave us at AJJ using your incredible theme, dear Elle. Believe me, I will continue to work in my Cats AB, even after this month has ended.
Your orange cat drawing is fantastic. And the little guys look like my Leo did. He was not little though. At 22 pounds (almost 10kg) he was one big boy, but according to my vet that was his ideal weight. He was definitely my cat too, Mr. Social-big snuggler-don’t leave me alone cat. 🙂 He followed me everywhere. And I also enjoy those Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum reads, so using that checkered book box is not only a great addition to the page but those are some fun reads. And you asked yesterday if the cat on my page was Lavinia, and it is. One of my few Lavinia stamps. I do like those stamps, but I am trying not to enlarge my collection too too much-grin Thank you again for joining us just in case you don’t get a chance to post again later. This is another wonderful page for your theme. hugs-Erika
Well, if this is the last page you do for your theme you certainly went out with a bang. Elle, that is a lovely drawing you made of the cat. Absolutely superb and the colouring is great too. I like him being so big – he reminds me of Fudge, the ginger Tom we cat-napped a long time ago. We only had him 18 months but he was a treasure.
Thanks for a lovely theme, so sorry I didn’t do more.
Hugs, Neet xx