Watercolor Painting of a Cat – Hypnotist

painting of a black cat

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Watercolor Painting of a Cat – Hypnotist

One of my ever-present studio mates poses for free whenever I want to do a watercolor painting of a cat. Scout is a formerly feral stray who arrived in our backyard, skittish and hungry many years ago.

We lived in the desert, among active and vocal coyotes, well known for traveling along the interconnected maze of block walls that separated properties in our neighborhood. They were expert at jumping down to grab small pets in backyards and then springing back up to exit the scene with their prey.

So many coyotes in the area meant there were no stray cats anywhere. We assumed Scout was lost. After a few weeks of feeding and sheltering him on our patio with the option of heated, enclosed hiding places (he wouldn’t let us touch him), and posting flyers, no one ever claimed the little tuxedo cat.

Scout, preparing to wrestle with the shrubbery in the garden

Adopting by a Feral Cat

After a few weeks of hanging out in the yard, and gradually letting my husband Don touch him, Scout settled into patio life. He killed birds, wrestled with low shrubs in the garden, rolled in the dirt, and verified our suspicion that he was an adolescent. And then one day, he disappeared.

About a week later, after lots of our searching, fretting, and hand-wringing – he showed up on the patio again – but quite injured. Something must have caught his back leg just beneath his hip, but he pulled away, tearing tendons and muscle from the bone to drag behind from his ankle. We captured him immediately and took him to the vet.

After stitches, staples, and a prescription for topical and oral antibiotics, we brought him inside to join our family of kids, cats, and retired racing greyhounds. It was a bit of a circus for a while, tending to and integrating a feral cat, but he took to us all remarkably well, considering the amount of pain he must have been in.

Scout, sleeping in my watercolor palette

The Nine Lives of Cats

Scout healed from his injuries and settled in with our kids, cats, dogs, and goldfish. Over the years, he survived a broken tail, a balcony fall, bladder crystals, and assorted close calls more suitable to a street cat, rather than this exclusively indoor, reformed feral boy. But he has outlived all our pets and now enjoys being the elderly but adorable King of the house.

Painting layers of watercolor in a long, tall format

Using Watercolor Paper Scraps

This watercolor painting is one in a series of tall, vertical format studies, prompted by a stack of watercolor paper cut-offs. A friend cropped a quantity of watercolor paper to fit her preferred frame dimensions, and she asked if I had use for a pile of good quality, long, skinny scraps of watercolor paper. Heck, yeah!

The stack of 300lb Fabriano Artistico paper led to a series of animal portraits, people portraits, and assorted watercolor painting experiments. A quick suggestion to reuse, recycle, and re-purpose some cast-offs led to a few weeks of watercolor painting bliss. What a gift!

black cat with green eyes
My beloved cat model, hypnotizing me to supply him with more adoration and petting.

Thanks for visiting today, and have an artful week!

I’ll see you in the next post!

Belinda

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watercolor of a black tuxedo cat
Hypnotist, 11 x 4 watercolor on paper

Art Quote

After 2 years of circulation in major exhibits, William McGregor Paxton’s painting Sylvia was purchased by an American collector in 1910. (He was 39.) His commissions & exhibitions continued at a vigorous pace & by 1935 he had earned more prizes than any other American artist. In NYC, however, where the genteel subjects of the Boston School were less revered, Paxton’s solo shows had mixed reviews. Paxton & his peers were beginning to be eclipsed by the shift to modernist painting.

E. Lee
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Click the brush to sign up for a free download of Watercolor Paper 101 – all the details about watercolor paper surfaces, weights, sizing, manufacturers, etc.

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5 thoughts on “Watercolor Painting of a Cat – Hypnotist”

  1. Love the painting. Beautiful hypnotist. I’ve got a couple of those.

    My Siamese comes running crying if she hasn’t seen me for an hour or so, begging to be patted.

    XOXO

    Barbara

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