31.7.06

MY CAT COLLECTION

There is a new Blog about Arthur only : "ARTHUR THE ALL IN ONE CAT"
http://gattinamycat-arthur.blogspot.com/






Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting







Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting






Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Egyptian cats

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Believe it or not, but during the years I collected over 300 cats, from wood to ceramic, from very small to very tall.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
I don't even remember how it happens. I think because everybody knew I liked cats, they started to offer me everything with a cat. Letterheads, calenders, agendas, keyrings, plates, mugs, napkinholders, and even a toilet paper holder !

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Our thermos
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
a plate for magnets

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Salt and Pepper

Then for birthday, motherday, weddingday, christmas, I was offered a cat. My son said, that at least in this, I was an easy mother because he only had to offer me a cat to make me happy. And this lasts until today, I am still happy to being offered a cat.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
A make up holder (I made myself in a ceramic course)

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

plein wooden cats

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
CD holder

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

a wooden cat circle
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
wooden cats

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

and also Lisa...
The wooden cats, I have got mostly from my son the egyptian once too. He always offered me beautifull and very big cats. Unfortunately now he thinks I should change and be happy with other thinks. So he started to give me other presents. Beautifull, but would have been more nice with a small little cat.
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Dutch cats and a cat family
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
The flower pot I did myself too

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Pebbles I transform into cats
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Display cabinet, cats from all countries around the world
******
So by the time I had to buy a display cabinet and the house is full of cats.
My husband is also a cat fan, he also loves my collection and each time he finds a special cat which are not in the collection he buys it, adding to the seller with a shy look "It's for my wife's collection" I am a good excuse.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

My husband and his cat collection
******
Besides that, he started a "Grand prix" Ferrari collection and is purring like a cat if he gets one !
So we can put the cats in the Ferraris






The whole collection
except the once I forgot ....

The last pictures is a very old box from 1903







Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

This is not part of the collection, but

THE END

26.7.06

ARTHUR THE OVERWORKED CAT

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Arthur in all his beauty.


It looks like Arthur's mother has been a siamese (Arthur's voice sounds very much like that) who felt in love with an ordinary tabby cat, maybe she had her head in the garbidge bin as so many. Anyway, as Arthur is a mixture he was no money worth and landed as a little kitten in an animal shelter, where we picked him up.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Baby Arthur, as big as the remote control

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Sometimes he tries to water the plants ! I am watching (as Big Brother) and shooting with a Waterpistol ! Then he would jump out terrified, not knowing were the water came from. I were sitting innocently in my chair.


Arthur has a hard life !Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting The whole day he is running around and inspecting what people are doing in the street.

Everybody knows him because he is the only white cat in the whole neighborhood. There is not a single spot of another color on him, besides his little pink nose and the yellow eyes. He looks so white that it's boring. So I always buy him a nice collar, if possible with diamants so that he can sparkel in the sunshine (or moon), then he looks dressed. But in the same way I buy the colars he is in a hurry to loose them.

So on top of being an overworked cat, he is also expensive.

I say overworked because he has a lot to do !
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Helping the workers (if there are) in the street. He jumps in the holes, they make, he runs behind spades and brooms, is sharing generously the lunch with his new pals, and sits on their clothes. Sometimes he disappears for a little nap in a car when the door is open

So I am forced to ask the people to pay attention that they don't take him with them when they leave. Also it would be a danger to the workers, when Arthur suddenly jumps out of the backseats and screams like if somebody had walked on his tail.


He also likes to escort the postman and assits him when he puts the letters in our box and then he would walk him to all other boxes in the street.Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

As a very helpfull cat, he is watching the neigbours and as soon as somebody starts to fumble around in his garden, Arthur is there to play with the weed or ditch little holes. In that he has a lot of experience, as he has to do that for himself every day.

When Arthur is tired he won't come home, he disappears and we are wondering where he might be. One day one neighbor told me that Arthur liked her bedroom very much, as he is sleeping peacefully in her bed for some hours.

He also tries to assist guests while they are eating. Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting He checks what they have on their plates and when it suits him he tries to pull out the meat or chicken, as his devise is, everybody should share. Only most of the guests to his surprise do not agree. Poor Arthur.

When my husband leaves or comes back with his car, Arthur runs behind perhaps for his daily jogging and everybody laughes about the white cat running behind the white car.

Maybe he thinks that the color fits him, because he doesn't follow my yellow's

When it's nice and warm and the work been done, Arthur would sleep against the fence with his big (in any sense) friend Yanouk,Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Sometimes he puts his little paw on Yanouk's enormous paw, who sniffles at it and waggles happily with his tail.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Pookie, Kim, himself, Lisa

His last to do is getting on his harem's nerves, the 3 female cats with whom he is sharing life.

As he is the youngest and full of energy, he tries to play with them. The result is not very encouraging, because old little Lisa sends him to hell, Kim doesn't like to play and walks away, (that he understood in the meantime) only Pookie sacrifies herself occasionally and they are running around like mad, but suddenly she turns around and hisses in his face. Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting The look of Sir Arthur (as we also call him) is not payable with the whole money of the world.

So please pitty him, not only he works so hard, but also he is misunderstood by everybody (except his darling canopener, my husband)


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Arthur the sleeping model

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

The hat doesn't bother him, when it's time to wash, he washes

When Arthur sleeps, he sleeps. You can do everything you want to (almost) with him, he wouldn't move. So I put a doll's hat on him. Shame ! A cat is not a toy !


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Arthur working in a drawer



Photobucket - Video and Image HostingTHE END





CAT PAINTINGS

Everybody is complaining about the heat. Since 30 years we haven't had temperatures like this 35 °C (94 +/-) for such a long period i.e almost 3 weeks. Sometimes we have that for 2 days or so but not more. And as we are not at all equipped for that, we are all hanging around without energy. Not all the offices have airconditionning, so a few companies asked their staff to come early in the morning and finish early afternoon.

Usually every year I am attending summer school. We have a very nice one in the Ardennes. The Ardennes are the belgian "mountains" covered in dense forests, very high (!) the heighest point being over 650 m (2132 ft). Almost like Switzerland or the Rocky mountains. But it is a lovely place and a lot of french, germans and dutchs are spending their holidays there.
This time there were nothing for me in the summerschool. I wanted to do some modelling for a change and making cats, (for a change) but there were only pottery and I don't like that.

So I have to wait that it cools down and an inspiration comes over me to start a new
painting.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

At art school we had to paint violons ! Gee, that was hard and boring, so I added a cat, that I love to do

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


The same with the chairs ! Not easy

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Cat couple in love, anyway they are in love most of the time when they are not spayed. I am a romantic person !

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Big Brother is watching you !

And this ends my weekly exposition.

P.S. If it's not too hot for you and you are not too lazy, there is a guestbook, email, and even comments !



22.7.06

IS YOUR CAT AS BULLHEADED AS MINE ?

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting




My cat Lisa has not yet realized and probably never will, that my husband is retired and that we could sleep as long as we want to. No, as a caring cat, since about 3 years, she jumpes on any bed first at 6 am now at 5, fumbling around your head and purring like mad. If this doesn't wake up the person she decided to wake up, she uses the paws combing the hairs. Then at a last resort bites in anything available hanging out of the cover


and this proverb who somebody wrote so romantically doesn't fit at all in our case !!


Sandpaper kisses
On a cheek or a chin - That is the way for a day to begin!
Sandpaper kisses a cuddle and a purr
I have an alarm clock thats covered in fur


So when the targeted person finally moves and grunts and doesn't realize yet why his hand, elbow, food is hurting, gets up half asleep, swearing (that's my husband) and finds his/her way to the kitchen, Lisa is a happy cat. She finally got what she wanted and to proof that, she is following her victim by trying her best to be within his/her feet.


Photobucket - Video and  Image Hosting




While the person in question puts food in her bowl she strikes around his/her legs and behaves like a halfstarved cat, who hasn't eaten for weeks.
Then she would smell at the food and while you are trying to return sighing in to your bed and go back to sleep, she follows you and watches carefully if you lay down correctly.

Then Madam Lisa settles down happily curls up and closes her eyes. She had done her duty. And you are laying on your back admiring the ceiling and try hard to fall asleep again. Most of the time it doesn't work.



Conclusion, since we are retired we are not allowed to sleep until 9 in one shot.

Now, I have to explain the purring of Lisa. In my whole life, all the cats I have met and that's a lot, not a single cat purred like Lisa. Her purring is something very special.


First it is not really a purring she does, it's something between a pigeon's curring, the sound of a razor and all this together is very loud ! Impossible to sleep with that and without exaggeration you can hear her from one room to the other when the door is open !

Lisa is a real bullheaded cat. If she has something in her mind, for all catnips in the world she wouldn't change.


That's the same with doors or closets. When she decided to have a door to be opened for her, e.g. a door to go out or a closet to sleep in, she scratches. And how ! She sits on her buttom and like a windmill scratches the door without any miauwing until somebody shows up breathless from running to open the door of her wishes. By the time having tried for years to educate her, we silently gave up and resigned and open the door ...

Lisa also has her daily rituals.


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

When she sees my husband going in the bathroom in the morning, she immediately jumps on the sink and waits that he takes out his razor. And while he is shaving, she tries to assist him by playing with the cord or just checking if everything is done correctly.

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


When he sits at his computer, she immediately shows up from wherever she was, jumps on the keyboard and surprises my husband with her creativity in showing him programs he even knew about or suddenly get the printer started.

If she sees me going into the kitchen and taking a pan out, then of course Lisa has to help me like this spanish proverb says


"You have to keep one eye on your pots and the other on your cat "

and that is true. How many times I had to watch her not jumping in the pan and frying herself ! And anouncing to my husband in the evening "we will have fried cat tonight."


And I could continue and filling up pages and pages with Lisa's uses and peculiarities !



SOME OF MY CAT PAINTINGS

For the moment I am not painting ! It's far too hot. For once we have a real summer over here, but of course too much. It's a problem in the nothern countries, or it's raining and cool or it's so hot that you hardly can sit outside ! Even the cats are laying around without energy, (they usually don't have a lot, but now it's less than that) and would like to disappear in a fridge !


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

me too !






So I continue to show you what I did over the years. Anyway it takes quite some time to finish a picture. Although acrylic dries quite fast, but still it's a lot of work and takes time, but it's fun too and being happy about a good result is not so bad too. For a painter itself it's never good enough !





Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

cat with a sunflower, the picture is not very good, doesn't matter, gives you an idea !





Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

sleeping little cat


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Here is a cat meeting


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

and always be clean


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting watching the sunflowers




Photobucket - Video and Image HostingBy by