Sleepy Cosy Tabby Cats | Art therapy for pet loss

 At the sudden loss of an extremely beloved kitty companion, I found myself with the urge to draw him in his favourite cosy, peaceful sleeping positions. He was a beautiful brown tabby, but for variety when it came to painting I included orange and grey tabby colours.

the first sketches of kitties in cosy slumber

the completed, scanned paintings

I liked them so much I decided to make them into keyrings, with the idea that anyone else grieving a beloved tabby could find comfort in them, or to carry a reminder of their companion with them on their travels.



They are available to buy in my shop here !

I doodled more sleepy cats (I can't stop!) with various colours and breeds in mind, some based on new real life fluffy friends who have blessed us with their presence. (The cat distribution system is real!)

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2024

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Tabby Cats & Revisiting Old Kitty Illustrations from 2013

I recently came across scans of some unfinished cat sketches on my hard-drive from a sketchbook dated 2013(!) I still liked them and decided they ought to be finished. I first needed to excavate the sketchbook from the bottom of a storage cupboard in my parents' house, but luckily the sketches were found. 

(insert photo of sketchbook)

On the same page was a finished brown tabby, and the two sketches looked like they needed to match (although it wasn't a difficult decision due to my biased love of brown tabbies). After painting, I rescanned all three together to bring them up to the same scan quality (the scans from 2013 look poor now in comparison to my current scans - likely a mixture of the scanner technology improving over the years, and possibly some slightly improved editing skills! (hopefully). 

I still like the paintings from 2013, and along with some new cat illustrations would love to make some prints and stickers with them. 

Here is a collection of most of them, including two of the new tabbies:

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2013-2024

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Rats Moon (Mose & Peaches) Version 2 Starry Night Sky on Black

I revisited this rattie moon piece to add in a starry night sky background. I always felt the 2020 original with its plain background was missing something. Recently I've began experimenting with dark backgrounds and this felt like a great piece to try it on.

It's strange seeing my paintings with a dark background! What do you think?

I used black and white gouache, and as I no longer have the original painting, (the commission included ownership of the physical piece), I had to work with a print out of the scan for the outline, and then later piece it together with the original in Photoshop. I was pretty surprised when somehow, it worked?!

It was so satisfying to redo the whiskers in white to really make them pop! 

Here is a photo of the original painting completed in 2020:

A blog post about the original painting can be found here

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2024

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Honeycomb Heart & Honeycombs Pattern

Honeycomb pattern experiments and a drippy, gooey, melty honeycomb heart, inspired by Valentine's Day of course :) I am planning to use these for some designs I have in mind!

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2024

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Wild Fungi Series | Personal Project Mushroom Studies in Watercolour | Scientific Botanical Style Illustrations

Some recent completed wild fungi illustrations - a personal project I've been working on in my spare time. Fungi are fascinating! More 'shroom species have since been in the works.

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2023/2024
NOT FOR USE without written permission
www.amyholliday.co.uk

Wooden Pin Badges | Woodland Wildlife Watercolour Illustrations with Fly Agaric Mushroom, Honey Bee, Bumblebees, Butterfly and Snail

I made some new wooden pin badges featuring some of my nature-inspired illustrations!

Made from responsibly sourced, fast-growing maple wood. Not only are they nice to look at but they use 20 to 24 times less energy to produce than enamel pins!

The wood grain compliments the watercolour textures really well. I'd love to expand this collection over time with more designs.

These lovely pins were made with the help of the great Zap Creatives here in the UK. 

Available at amyholliday.etsy.com 

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2023

www.amyholliday.co.uk

"Book of Scones" illustrations are now a print!

I have always been fond of these tasty looking scone recipe illustrations, painted back in 2016 for a book called "National Trust Book of Scones". The book still appears to sell well and has great reviews. I recently received the lovely news that I have now been granted permission to make prints! I added some labels, hand drawn in pencil, to avoid any confusion with the recipes! 

If you'd like a print, you can get one here: www.amyholliday.etsy.com

Artwork © Amy Holliday 2023

www.amyholliday.co.uk