Mimi Torchia Boothby

The Sand cat is an adorable looking little cat that can be found in desert areas of Northern Africa, Arabia and parts of Central Asia and Pakistan. They are a small cat, a large male weighs little more than six pounds.

The sand cat has highly specialized feet and ears, perfectly designed for life in the desert. Its feet are so furry, and the cat is so light-weight, that it leaves no tracks in the sand. The cat’s ears are shaped much like the bat-eared fox’s and readily listen for any potential prey scurrying across the desert sands.

In many countries it has been illegal to hunt the sand cat for quite some time now as it is a globally protected species, but the cat has possibly remained more well-protected by its religious significance as well. According to the Koran, Muslims believe that sand cats were once the companions of the Prophet Mohammed and his daughter, as they traveled by foot across the desert.

The sand cat can live without drinking water, instead obtaining all the fluid it requires from its prey – in this it is comparable to Black-footed Cat found in similar arid locations in parts of South Africa. The Sand cat is one of the few species of animals that might be profiting from the desertification of the Sahara. As humans find the desert too barren to survive, wildlife returns.

To read more about Sand Cats go here: http://www.agarman.dial.pipex.com/sandcat.htm
or here:http://specieshanginthebalance.com/sand-cat
This painting has been donated to the Felidae Conservation Fund, it’s a 6.5″ x 11″ handpainted watercolor. If you would like to buy it, please contact them.
They fund wild cat conservation and are part of a world wide effort to help these creatures.

A tortoiseshell cat is a cat with both the red gene and the black gene, and they are called Tortie for short. Their fur is mottled in a mosaic of color,and the shapes and patterns are random. If a tortoiseshell cat has enough white on her, she is then called a Calico and her patches of color are bigger and more pronounced. Since the color gene for tortoiseshell resides on the X chromosome, only a very few male cats ever end up being torties — they are genetic anomalies, and so far, all have been sterile, so they are not “worth a fortune” But that is why torties are usually females.

It is wonderful luck to have a pair of cats who love each other, like these two clearly do. They were fostered by Kitty Harbor and were adopted by some very nice people, hopefully as a pair!
This painting is for sale for $125 and half the proceeds will go to Kitty Harbor. It measures 7.5″ x 11″.

Do you have cats who are friends with each other?

I have a wonderful cat that we call Aggie. She was born somewhere in Seattle under an abandoned car. She and her twin sister were trapped and rescued and then I was their foster mother and socialized them both. My husband decided I needed a particularly affectionate cat, so as I was preparing to get these two kittens adopted, he adopted Aggie for me!
Aggie has the plushest coat of any cat I have ever known. She’s covered with grey fur, but in the right light, it’s a very light silver, particularly in places like her toes. One of her favorite things to do is to curl up really tight in your lap, purring away. It’s like a kitty hug. It is quite special to be hugged like this by a cat. So here she was snuggling up to me like this while I was trying to proofread a blog article that my husband wrote. Suddenly, instead of reading, I had flipped over the paper and was sketching her on the back of the printed sheet. That’s how this painting was born. So many people say cats are aloof, but those are people who have never had a kitty hug.

The Pallas cat, also called the Manul, is a small wild cat that lives in the cold barren regions of central Asia – the steppe grassland regions of Mongolia, China and the Tibetan Plateau as well as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. They look much larger than a house cat because of their huge feet and thick plush coat; but the largest of them weigh only 10 pounds. They have adorable low set ears and interestingly, their pupils are round like ours. Although the Pallas cat is not listed on any endangered species list, like many other wild cats, their range is threatened and this particular cat does not breed well in captivity.

This is an original watercolor painting and it measures 5.5″ x 7.5″ and it is for sale for $125.00. Half of the proceeds will go to small wild cat preservation.
There is an organization that focuses on the Manul; they are the Pallas Cat Study and Conservation Program

This painting was an exercise in daring to hope. What, to me, would represent a wonderful day? Could I paint it?
I love sunrise and sunset, and even though I am a morning person, it seems to be harder to catch the sunrise than the sunset. Perhaps it’s because at sunrise I am bustling around going to work, doing chores; but at sunset I have more time to just take time, reflect, and watch. And that’s part of what this is about. I have been given the gift of a life partner who likes to share those moments with me. I painted the people small so that they could be anyone. They could be Donald and I or they could be you and your sweetie, or two of your friends. I also painted the people small so they can be seen in true perspective to the world we live in; small, insignificant, and dwarfed by the landscape that they find themselves in.

What is one of the things you like to see the most?