Cat Suites at FieldHaven Feline Rescue

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

I should have blogged about this weeks ago . . . but better late than never. I did write about it in my latest e-newsletter, which is why this may look familiar to some of you.

I've been a FieldHaven Feline Rescue supporter since I met Joy Smith, the director and founder, many years ago (I designed their logo too). FieldHaven now has a brand new, wonderful shelter for its feline charges. The shelter officially opened in April 2011.

As construction neared completion, FieldHaven staff came up with the idea to team local artists with shelter sponsors to create custom decorated rooms in the new building. Joy contacted me to see if I'd be interested in decorating one of the rooms and I agreed. Sandy, my good friend and fellow animal fanatic, agreed to help and we tackled this unique project with a mix of trepidation and excitement. I chose one of the four small rooms since I wasn't quite sure what I was getting us into. The small rooms (suites) are intended for cats who don't get along with others, so they're big enough for one cat or perhaps two cats if they know each other.

We designed and painted an oak woodland mural in the suite and I painted portraits of the sponsor's cats in various locations in the scene.



The "Oak Haven Suite"


The "Oak Haven Suite" in Progress

My art work is pretty much all small format, so this was quite an undertaking. While I have no problem thinking big - I'm not exactly a muralist. We ended up with even more on our plate when the neighboring suite's sponsor asked if we'd work on her room as well! A second mural was on the table until Sandy came to the rescue with a great design based on an ornate mirror & pair of candlesticks that had belonged to her grandmother. The "Mad Catter Suite" was born and it's a crazy concoction of wild colors, ornate decorations and even a Cheshire Cat.


The "Mad Catter Suite". The photos are Photoshopped versions of the sponsor's pets, complete with Dollar Store gilded frames. The moulding was salvaged from our bathroom renovation. The lower half is more of a peachy salmon than it looks here.


Seti the Egyptian Mau shares space with the Cheshire Cat


That's me for scale. The room is not much bigger than a closet!

Sandy tapped a wood-working friend to make the neat bunk beds in each room and another friend to make some of the shelves. The long shelf in the Oak Haven Suite was donated by the sponsors. Sandy's husband helped us install some of the components. We certainly appreciate the outside help for this team effort!

See many more photos in my Facebook album (you don't need a Facebook account to view the album).

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Work in Progress

Monday, May 09, 2011

Nothing really new to report, but I've been plugging away on a number of drawings, so I thought I'd post three of them that are in progress. The first two are farther along than last time I posted them on the blog.

This one is a pencil portrait of Breezy, the Arab mare:


Here's an earlier stage of the drawing:


The drawing is approximately 7" x 7" in pencil on Stonehenge paper.

This portrait of Brogan, an Irish Wolfhound, is mixed media (ink, watercolor & eventually, color pencil) on Aquabord. The board is 9" x 12", which makes the image area approx. 8" x 10".


This stage is watercolor, applied fairly loosely to block in the basic areas of color. The darkest areas (black) were drawn with India ink.


Here I've added some more detail with watercolor



Here I've scratched in detail and fur texture with an X-Acto knife (#11 blade). The next step will be to come back in with watercolor applied more carefully than in the first two steps.


The last one is a drawing of a German Shepherd pup on black scratchboard (Ampersand Scratchbord). This is not a commission, just one I'm doing because I want to work on the black scratchboard surface. I haven't done many illustrations on this surface. I've been hanging out in the Scratchboard Forum of WetCanvas lately, and there's some jaw-dropping work on the black boards in that group.


This is a 5" x 7" board. All I've done so far is scratch with an X-Acto knife. Once I have all the scratching completed, I'll come back in with ink as needed for detail.

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- - - All art and images ©Ann Ranlett, unless otherwise credited. All rights reserved. - - -
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