Kitten Portrait | Head Study Painting

I didn't have much time to paint yesterday as I had to work and then we had tornadoes coming through the area all afternoon! By the time the sirens and storms were done, I had a massive migraine headache. :(

Anyway, I did paint this quick head study of our kitten Oreo yesterday. I hope you like it! The painting is available on a wide variety of gifts and cards.

Want to have your pet's portrait painted? Visit my custom pet portraits page for information and pricing.
http://www.jaiart.com/custom-pet-portraits.html

Thanks so much for stopping in to view my work and for sharing my website with fellow pet lovers! Comments are always welcome.

InJoy,
♥ Jai
http://www.jaiart.com
Enjoy my mini art gallery on the front page, and shop for limited edition prints, cards, and gifts with your favorite paintings. Be sure to read the news page for upcoming series, events, contests, and more exciting things!

Life Lessons from a Cat 24 Month Calendar

I finished Oreo's new calendar and it's now available via Zazzle. Click below to see all the photos you get and words of wisdom from little Oreo. Even though she's gone, she will live on through her photos and messages! Individual greeting cards, note cards, mousepads, fine art prints, and collectible packs of ACEO art trading cards are also available with Oreo's Life Lessons here.

Life Lessons from a Cat Calendar

Oreo's Last Photos

The last two photos taken of Oreo...the first photo is the last GOOD photo of her, and the second one is the very last photo taken of her. I love how she has her tongue sticking out in that one...it's almost like she's sending a message.

Animal Advocacy - Stop Animal Cruelty

In memory of Oreo and all the other pets and animals who have lost their lives at the hands of a human with no disregard for living beings, I have created a line of animal advocacy products to help bring awareness to this issue.

View the product and gift line here.

UPDATE: Oreo's murder

I filed a police report this morning about Oreo's murder and also took the police officer and showed her the dead possum.

They are calling animal control about the possum.

According to the Tennessee code, if it can be proven that she is intentionally
killing these animals, she can be fined $2500-$300,000 and serve time in jail. PROVE is the key word though...it's VERY hard to do with poisoning. The police told me not to go ON her property, but I can go all around it with my camera and if I see a dead animal (domestic or wild) I am to photograph it and call them immediately.

They had me assess a value on Oreo. I showed them some of her published works
(calendar, book, and greeting cards) and told them this cat earned me about
$2,500 in the past year and that we have had at least another $500 in vet bills for
her, as well as food expense.

I went back to one of the neighbors this morning and gave her my incident # the
police gave me, and told her if any more people report animals dead or if they
see any more dead over there, to call the police and report it and refer to that
#. If they get enough reports of animals dead in her yard or nearby, they can
zone in on the lady easier. It's just a shame more animals will probably have to
die to stop this. I also told the officer I was letting all of my neighbors
know - she said that was fine for me to do.

I'm thinking about putting another poster up - just not sure what to say on it? I thought about a reward for verifiable information about the poisoning of domestic and wild animals in our neighborhood. I also thought of simply writing "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" on it. She told me she is a "born again Christian" (after she screamed at me and threatened my other animals, as well as threatened the neighbors animals) As a Christian woman, she surely has seen that phrase before.

Oreo's Not Happy & Some Other Photos

Oreo is NOT happy. She had to have a vet visit today. "Grandpa Bill" suggested I take her because she's lost an excessive amount of weight this past week, and I agreed she needed to go. It was a good thing I took her...she has hookworms! She got poked and prodded and had a Feline Leukemia test (negative, thank goodness!). Then she had worming medicine, and she has to have this other "high calorie food" which is like a pasty-vaseline kind of stuff that will help stimulate her appetite and get her weight going back the right direction.

She's not happy about ANY of it. NONE. So...since I'm the one who took her to this "monster" who manhandled her, she's mad at ME. I've tried to explain it was necessary to help her feel better, but she has no interest in hearing anything I've got to say, as you can see by her photo.

Here's some other recent photos for you to enjoy. Here we have Mr. T. He's not unhappy with me (though he also received worming meds when I got home)...in fact, he just wants his belly rubbed. Upside down, he looks like a skunk! Gotta love this pose. :)

This next photo is a bug. I think some kind of moth. Bill told Allyson it is a Sphynx Moth or something like that. I think it's one of the most artistic looking moths I've ever seen!

And here we have one of our neighborhood mushrooms. A cell phone is next to it for reference as to the size. This is the biggest one I've seen so far this year. Looks like a HUGE pancake!


Allyson has worked on a series of cat photos - which I'm going to be doing a project with for Christmas art. I look forward to sharing those with you soon!

Hope is like the sun.

Little Oreo is the subject of this inspirational photo design I just completed. Take a look at the cards:

Hope (Cat) Cards by jaisjewels

The verse reads: Hope is like the sun. As we journey toward it, the shadows of our burdens fall behind us.

Say few prayers for Oreo, please...she has a cold and she is still coughing some. I hope it will clear up okay without a vet visit. I'm kinda "vetted out" lately with Lady's vet visits and medicine. Lady is feeling better (because of the pain meds), but the problem has still not been solved, and unfortunately, I can't afford the x-rays needed to find out what's going on. I hate it when my babies aren't well. Just like kids...you just want them to feel better and be okay!

New Kitten Design Featuring Oreo!

All of Oreo's fans will LOVE this sweet design I created, which features a pop art image of Oreo along with the words Kittens are angels with whiskers. See all of the cool products this design is featured on in my Love Beat shop.

I've also added her design to my Zazzle shop, which has even more of a variety of neat products and t-shirts, like this one:

Kittens by jaisjewels

A cool feature Zazzle has which I *love* is they give the customer the ability to CUSTOMIZE - you can make the image larger or smaller, add text of your own, and more! Visit GalleryJai.Com on Zazzle.

Have your pet's image turned into a custom pop art pet painting and placed on products too! Visit my web page here which describes the process.

Please vote for Oreo's Photo!

Please vote for Oreo in this week's photo contest...we could win a new vacuum which we desperately need! Click here to cast your vote!

Cat Painting #9, My Favorite Toy

One of Oreo's favorite toys is this catnip mouse...she absolutely goes nuts over it, is very proud of it, and loves to show it off after she catches it. I originally thought it was because of the catnip, however, she doesn't respond to other catnip toys as well as she does this one...so I'm beginning to think she likes the material this mouse is made from. In this painting, I've portrayed her exactly as she was photographed...lying upside down under me, showing off her favorite toy.

I thought I'd never finish this painting...it's been a rough, stressful week here at my place, and it's so hard to work under those conditions. I do NOT like to paint when my emotions are all over the place from stress. I find I'm totally unfocused and lost. Making decisions regarding the painting are difficult. But I plugged along - it took me two days instead of one - and I am pleased with the result. I'm exhausted though, as it seemed to have took much more out of me than normal to do this painting. I'm actually happy I was able to finish it in two days...the way it was going yesterday, I just knew it would take a week! :)

This painting is available:

My Favorite Toy, oil pastel on board, size 8x10" $100

Cat Painting #9, in progress

Skipped a day yesterday...too many issues I had to deal with, plus errands. So I'm trying to get back in the swing of things today with another cat painting, #9 in my series of 365 paintings. This is an in progress shot of Oreo's painting...her with her catnip mouse. Right now, I'm working the painting upside down - I know, it looks right-side-up here, but the photo was shot the other direction. I'm just painting it this way because it's easier, and closer to the end, I'll flip it.

I post these progress photos to show the beginnings (i.e. how awful) of how a painting looks. But by posting the in progress photo, I can also spot my problem areas before they get too far. For instance in this painting, I can already see I need more white highlight in the eyes, and the dark fur area on the left needs to be more speckled than smooth. So I still have some work to do on this area, but I like to let the oil pastels sit up a bit and cool off so I can work the area better. In the meantime, I'll start filling in the rest of her face on the right side.

This one may take longer than one day...I'm draggin' a bit after yesterday!

Red Mouse, Original cat painting #4

Oreo has always been adventurous. Whatever presents itself to her she sees as a challenge, and is always willing to pounce. This red mouse, however, made her a bit cautious. She assumed the beginning of her pounce position, yet stayed back for quite some time, staring intently and evaluating the toy for movement and possible danger. Which gave me just enough time to capture her photo. :)

This is painting #4 in my series 365 Cat Paintings, and is available for sale here.

At Rest, oil pastel painting of Oreo

I finished Oreo's painting. It's titled "At Rest" and is an 8x10" oil pastel on watercolor canvas board, varnished for protection. I figured I've spent a year photographing the kittens...maybe now I'll spend a year painting them. :)

See more photos and purchase this original painting here.

This is the first painting in my new series, 365 Cat Paintings.

Painting in Progress

Often after a big life event, or a long illness, I find myself at a creative loss. I've been experiencing that for days now as I recover from being so sick, and it's very distressing and depressing. One way to work out of it is to do something totally so far off base creatively, that it shocks the brain into waking back up and re-entering a creative realm. So today, I've pulled out my oil pastels and a small canvas board, and I'm working on a painting of little Oreo. I pulled one of Allyson's recent photos of her, and just started working. By taking in progress photos, I can see what areas need work, and I thought I'd share here, simply because this might be one of those moments you don't see again for a while. :)