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

Cheetah // Watercolour and Black Indian Ink

I recently found this in a sketchbook from back when I set myself a personal project of drawing 100 animals in 100 days, and 4 years later, I have finally scanned it in. It was an experiment with black Indian ink on top of my usual watercolour paints.

 Artwork (C) Amy Holliday 2020

Do not use without permission

www.amyholliday.co.uk

Personal: Small Cat Studies

Personal work: Some smaller, quicker ("spot") kitty illustrations to contrast the large, more detailed ones from the start of the year. Trying to capture the feline essence/way - I had 32 sketches by the time I had finished, (some turned out much better than others did!) 

I returned to them at a later date and added some colour to my favourites...  (click for a larger view)

All images (C) Amy Holliday 2013.  Please do not use these illustrations without prior permission!

Cat Breed Studies: Silver Tabby

A silver/grey tabby this time, I love their markings and golden eyes. More info on this feline breed series can be found in the previous post here. 

More cats:

Maine Coon

Russian Blue

Ginger Tabby

Silver Tabby

Siamese

Cat Breed Studies: Russian Blue

The first of more cats! With this series I have been aiming to improve on the more detailed kind of pet studies from the cat food packaging and the Urban Pup dog apparel illustrations.


I find drawing/exploring a few different breeds/types of an animal or subject is a good way to notice their distinct and unique forms; in the hope of noting differences like hair/fur textures and variations in body shapes and sizes will hopefully make the subject a little more accurate.

Hey, do you think this rather regal-looking Russian Blue bares a resemblance to the "Sheba" cat?

These "cat breed studies" are a little more detailed to how I usually illustrate (and seem to be in the league of almost realistic portraits) ..

I feel I definitely need to get back to my own looser and much livelier style of illustrating - I hope it will loosen me up again after all this detailed work!

More cats:

Maine Coon

Russian Blue

Ginger Tabby

Silver Tabby

Siamese

Sketchbook: Smiley Cats

The limited number of daylight hours here in the north of England are limiting the time I can spend painting - and when the weather is bad it can seem like nighttime, all the time! I have lamps but nothing beats bright daylight for getting colours right. Drawing on the other hand is fine, as any light will do for that! And this I am very thankful for. Here is one of the subjects I have been sketching lately: new cats. With these I have been really aiming to capture very sweet feline faces. (Click for a larger view)