(The Moon & the Cat) Sometimes I just really feel the need to be creative and make something. It's like an itch you gotta scratc...

La Lune et le Chat

Saturday, January 24, 2015 , , , , ,

(The Moon & the Cat)
La lune et le chat.
Sometimes I just really feel the need to be creative and make something. It's like an itch you gotta scratch. I know you fellow creative types know what I'm talking about.
La lune et le chat.
Back when Paxton had his first birthday, if you will rememeber, I painted that fun vintagey moon face for his party and room? I still have not put it up in his room because my teachers always gave me high marks in the procrastination category on my report cards. Anyway, I so enjoyed painting that moon face that I bought more of these wood circles at Home Depot {they make perfect moon face canvases and around about $5} to paint more moon faces. I finally got around to it. This time, a crescent moon face {la lune} and a cat {le chat}.
La lune et le chat.
I'm pretty proud of the fact that I free-handed the sketching. I mean, I tried finding a circle around the house to create the crescent shape--but that only led to me uttering a few choice unsavory words while rummaging through the cupboard that I keep all my round cake pans in.

In the end, I used this antique moon face image and this moon cat silhouette as inspiration. Can you see them both in my painting?
La lune et le chat.
This is one of my favorite things to do, so why don't I do it more often?
La lune et le chat.
I decided I didn't want to go full on black cat and end up with Halloween art, so I used our cat Stella as my muse. She so graciously agreed to pose for me.
La lune et le chat.
The thing about muses, however, is that they can be awfully needy and thrive on drama. Um, Stella. I'm trying to paint here. {She loves my hair and will take any chance she gets to perch on my shoulders and purr sweet nothings into my blonde locks.}
La lune et le chat.
This made for a very comical moment of chaos {in hindsight of course, hindsight} when my muse became put out over me trying to dislodge her from my hairstyle, whereupon she jumped onto the table and into the white paint, at which point I grabbed her in my arms and for whatever reason could only think to cry out, "DISASTER! DISASTER!" and Justin leapt from the sofa, grabbed the cat from my hands and rushed her to the kitchen sink where he attempted to bathe the cat...attempted being the keyword here, because trying to wash cats...well...that's never going to go well for you.

I took this photo as proof of what happened, and as you can see Justin is appraising a rather deep cat scratch while my muse leaps from where she thinks he tried to waterboard her, and a mere second later--if you must know--my husband yelled at me about appropriate vs. inappropriate moments to take pictures. Duly noted, husband. I spent the next five minutes scrubbing white acrylic paint off our dark hardwood floors in paw-shaped 12-inch intervals.
La lune et le chat.
What I'm trying to demonstrate here, is that artists have to make sacrifices for their work. We put up with a lot. Or something like that.
La lune et le chat.
So what do you think of La Lune et le Chat? You know I like folk art and fairy tales.
La lune et le chat.
One of my favorite folk artists, Charles Wysocki, painted a lot of cats. I've studied his paintings and always found painting cats to be intimidating but now I can say I've done it. I have upped the ante for crazy cat ladies everywhere. Sure you say you love your cat, but have you painted your cat in a whimsical setting? Hm. :::admires fingernails:::
La lune et le chat.
I have my own studio in the basement, but more often than not I just end up at the dining room table. Glorious mess! The tricky part can sometimes be decided when a painting is done. You could mess around with it until kingdom come, but I once asked my father {who is a legit artist, not the kitchen table kind who gets into it with cats} when he knows he's done and he just thought about it and said, "When you don't feel like fussing with it anymore!" Here I am...wondering if I should dot some white twinkling stars on that blue sky, or should I leave it be?
La lune et le chat.
I have a thing for painting these wood circles, I gotta tell you. I want to do more moons. Moons & owls. Moons & stars. Moons & flapper girls. #cantstop #wontstop
La lune et le chat.
#procrastinating

Cheers,
Heather

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6 comments

  1. The painting is wonderful! It has a lyrical art-nouveau feel! Evocative of the golden age of illustrations. You could sell that easily!
    But oh what we suffer, Justin iincluded, for Art!
    Dad

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    1. Thanks dad :-) That means a lot coming from YOU.

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  2. Amazing! I lack the artistic gene something fierce. Like I can't draw a straight line with a ruler. But, that doesn't stop me from appreciating other people's talents. This moon is so amazing! When I saw it on IG, I knew it was yours because I remembered Paxton's birthday (ahem, my invite must have gotten lost in the mail). I can only assume that painting is relaxing, no? Even with a paint covered cat who impaled your husband?

    Oh and by the way? The fact that your dad commented on your post totally made my day. So sweet! My dad would be like "whats a blog?".

    Have an awesome day!

    Erica

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    Replies
    1. Erica! Aww! He's a sweet guy to read my silly blog :-S when he's not reading The New Yorker. There was a time when he didn't know what a blog was either.

      You may not be an "artist" but you're definitely creative. I've seen your decorating!

      Thanks for the comment. It made me smile.

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  3. Love the painting, love your always-fun-to-read posts, love you, Heather!

    -- Becky

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