Art by Niki Hilsabeck

We live in an age where we can spend our entire day receiving input from others, even without leaving the house or talking to anyone.  We can read messages, articles, scroll through profiles and updates, or even turn on that old dinosaur known as the t.v.  For me, there's also reading novels-- something I thoroughly enjoy but feel a little guilty indulging in when there are so many other things I should be doing.  Add to that the time I spend listening to the birds outside, or gazing at the ocean, or drinking in the afternoon light on the oak trees, and there's very little energy left for output-- which in my case is painting or writing new things.  "Ready to Pounce" on Daily Paintworks And then there are the cats.  They're very distracting, but they do provide me with a bit of creative inspiration. On a side note, I feel this way about learning a foreign language.  In the year I spent in Germany, I probably spent the first six months mostly liste...

"The Bookeeper" Click here to view auction After many years of painting cats, I've learned a few things.  Every time I start a new cat painting, it follows its own unique path, bringing challenges that I don't seem to face when I paint my more traditional material (landscapes, birds, floral and botanical pieces, etc.) For example, cats don't stay put for too long (unless they're asleep, and even then they'll often stretch and change positions when you're least expecting it).  To combat this challenge, I end up working mostly from photographs.  That means adjusting the proportions, since the camera angle causes some distortion depending on the position and location of the cat. "Eye Contact" Oil Pastel Not for Sale "Side Glance" Oil Pastel Available on Etsy  One of the reasons cats are enjoyable to paint is that they have strong facial expressions.  When I'm painting a cat, I get so focused on rendering the cat...

"Harbor Reflections" 12 x 16 Mixed Media on Paper Click here to purchase original No surprise here: when feeling discouraged, I turn to the color blue! The painting above was done mostly from imagination, although I did flip through a few reference photos of boats at the harbor in Oceanside, CA for inspiration. I am enjoying the process of adding thick acrylic with a palette knife to structure a piece, and layering in pastel to finish it. I did have to use some gesso, having run out of white acrylic. The gesso worked nicely as a base for some of the chalk, and I'm tempted to stick with that instead of buying more white for a while. I wanted to capture the effect of bright sunlight, which deepens the blues and highlights the stark whites when the weather is at its finest down in Oceanside. For my next piece, I went to another familiar theme: cats. "Now What?" 9 x 12 Chalk Pastel on Flat Canvas Click here to view Etsy listing This particular cat appeare...

"Chatte et Pomegranates" 5 x 6 Watercolor and Colored Pencil on Card We've been getting some dry, cold weather in between brief storms. Between having dry hands and finding it a little cold outside to work with pastels, I thought I might try a little different direction and play with watercolor. The subject for the painting above is a cat who has been in the family for many years. A few years back, we had quite a pomegranate crop, and I brought a basket of them over to my sister's. The cat sniffed them curiously, then sat down by them in disgust. She looked so funny sitting guard by the basket, I had to take a picture. I thought it might make a nice card for this time of year, and set out to paint it on one of my Strathmore watercolor cards. After getting the basic watercolor painting done, I tried out my spectracolor pencils as a finishing touch. I've never really used these seriously before, but Ive often wondered how they would look over paint. They ble...

"La Chatte Orange" 12 x 16 Mixed Media on Paper Click here to view Etsy listing This piece isn't too much different from my mixed media works, except for the text. It was adding the text, however, that made this piece an official collage for me. It was originally just a little mixed media cat, but I wasn't too excited about the finished look. Layering tissue paper, acrylic (including some metallic gold paint), and chalk pastel, I thought the piece would have more punch when it was finished. I gave it the title "Chat Orange," which got me thinking about what influenced the piece in the first place. Toulouse Lautrec has always been one of my favorite painters, and the "Chat Noir" prints have been regulars in home decor and greeting cards in my family. I was disappointed to learn as an adult that the Chat Noir was actually a bar, not a character that would appear in more of his pictures. When I started my "Chatte Orange," the init...