
November 19, 2010 - Comments Off on Cat Painting on a dictionary page
Cat Painting on a dictionary page
My son wanted me to make him a drawing or a painting. He's 10, and very very focused on stick figure battles as fine art, but likes my drawings okay, too. Since I wasn't that interested in drawing him an epic battle scene, and I make my stick figures "too fat," I thought I'd draw him a cat.
I did a preliminary sketch of a cat, flat orange and cartoony, using a photo of our old cat Ozark as a reference. "Oh, that's cute, Max likes cats." For the final painting on the dictionary page, though, I actually painted the actual cat. This cat was a hellion, but slept on Max's bed every night, and was just really sweet to him. He loved Ozark, and whenever we get too effusive in praising our current cats, Pippa and Penny, Max will always point out how cute Ozark was, or sweet, or brave.
Then we'll talk about what a shit he was, too.
The page has the words "unpredictable," and "unpopular," which amuses us. He made our dog's life hell. She was scared to pass him in the hall. He rode another Lab around the yard, claws dug in, while she yelped in fear, then sat behind the sliding glass door and smacked it with his paw whenever she came close. He had orange DANGER stickers on his folder at every vet he ever went to. I would offer to hold him for his shots or examinations, and the vets assistants would say, "no, I don't think that's necessary," and then five minutes later they'd say, "Mr. Williamson, can you come hold your cat?"
Oddly, every vet we took him to (we're pretty loyal, so it was only like 5 vets in the 14 years we had him from abandoned 5 week old sickly kitten to crotchety old geezer), had someone working there with the exact same cat: Orange tabby, super-sweet to them, but at war with the rest of the world. Ozark.
Published by: Philip Williamson in Writing
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