Helpful Cat

        Having done prints of several dogs in the past year, and having sold out of most of my earlier cat pieces, I thought it was time for a new cat.  It took me a while to get around to it, though, because I didn’t want to do it if I couldn’t try something different from the huge amount of Cat Art I’ve done before.  I had a few ideas, but the cat wouldn’t cooperate.  I’ve rhapsodized before about how our cat Nightshade was such a muse, but recently Talia has been a veritable anti-muse.  Every time I saw her in the right pose I’d grab my camera for a reference photo, and every time she’d wait until I was just about to snap the picture and then move.  If I even so much as reached for a pencil, she’d 

stretch and shift just before I could sketch anything.  She’s been unhelpful like this for months!  But finally I came up with something to work with, and I carved and printed this rather intense cat.  To tell the truth, this isn’t quite what I was intending.  I was imagining a mellower look in its eyes, but when I inked the block and saw it glaring up at me so challengingly, I decided this was probably more representative anyway.
        But despite her apparent reluctance to be a model, Talia has managed to participate in the printmaking in a more hands-on way.  Yes, I really ought to say “paws-on.”  In the midst of a block she jumped onto my table, right into the middle of the ink plate.  Startled, she ran off over the table, along the windowsill, and across the floor, leaving her own trail of relief prints behind her.  I know I always say I encourage everyone to make block prints, but I draw the line at printing 
all over the floor!  I like having the company, but I can do without the participation.

        Happy Thanksgiving to those in the US!  May your family and friends be loving and your feast lovely.

[Pictures: White Paw, rubber block print by AEGN, 2014;

Cat tracks, photos by AEGN, 2014.]