It often happens that when I’m working on something in my studio, I convert the idea into a class for The Mansion.
This time it was the cat faces from the Cat Face Pillows I’ve been making. I wanted to show how by altering a few lines or shapes you can create different expressions.
Much like the cats on the linen towel I used to make the pillows, but even more basic.
But before we began I passed around my last unfinished Cat Face Pillow so people could see what I was doing and where the idea for the class came from. I also told them the rat story from yesterday.
“Oh rats are so cute.” Susan said. And no one was really surprised. Susan likes all animals and insects. She was the only one in the class who thought it was a good idea that I let the rat go.
After that I handed out paper to each of the people sitting around the big round table in the Activities Room at the Mansion. Earlier in my studio I had drawn four squares on each piece of paper. I’d also drawn some examples of cats with different expressions on their faces.
Next I showed everyone how to draw the basic cat face shape and demonstrated how to express the emotions with simple lines.
Then they began…
Some people made only happy cats. “I’m feeling happy,” Rachel said, “so my cats are happy.”
Jennifer surprised us all. I knew she was a good artist, but she drew with such confidence and experience. Jennifer was a ballet dancer into her early twenties. She gave it up to have a family. But she said she was always good at art.
Ellen was the only one to draw her cats with colored markers. We all realized, when she was done, that the colors matched her blouse.
When I mentioned to Mary that her cats didn’t have whiskers, she said it was because he shaved them.
Most of Claudia’s cats were happy. But I loved the expression on the one below. As if she was trying hard to be happy, but was also acknowledging the realities of life.
