Gather round, I have a story to tell. While the Serval Cat, native to Africa, can be found south of the Sahara desert, it is not considered to be endangered, even though they are now extinct in many areas like Morocco,Tunisia and Algeria.
This painting is of a cat named Chace, whose early life is unknown, but he was rescued from a perilous situation in 2007. A woman was walking down the street one day in upstate New York when she saw what appeared to be a wild animal crazily crashing into the windows of a home. Animal control officers quickly rescued the cat and discovered that he had been left without food for some time, having resorted to eating furniture stuffing to survive. The house was abandoned by a drug dealer, who had apparently returned from time to time with food for the serval cat.
Chace was lucky, they nursed him back to health and eventually sent him to where he lived out the last few years of his life safely and comfortably.

Servals are wild animals and are not suitable as pets. There are people who breed and sell these cats, they are taken from their mothers at birth and declawed. They are great while they are kittens, but the older they get the more solitary and timid they become. They are huge (for house cats) weighing in up to 35 pounds. They require a very specific diet to thrive. They are rather destructive because they can jump 15 feet up and are extremely athletic and even while neutered at a really young age, both males and females tend to spray.

Servals can be found in sanctuaries and museums all over, so of the cats I have so far depicted, you have a good chance of being able to see one alive.

Chace died after living at the wildlife sanctuary for about 2 years from kidney failure. They estimated his age to be around 13 years of age, which is not too bad for a cat who was so badly mistreated.
This painting is not for sale.

reference photo taken by Dan Butterworth.

The Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is a medium-sized wild cat of South and Southeast Asia. They are twice the size of a domestic cat. Their claws do not retract all the way like most cats, and they love water. Not only do they swim and fish, but they swim underwater for long distances. Fishing cat territory is unfortunately, prime waterfront property where human development continues to destroy habitat and over-exploit fish stock. Fishing cats are forced to eke out an existence among human settlements, even in cities, where they are hunted and blamed for predation of chickens and other small livestock. Luckily there are some foundations that are working to protect them and give them sanctuaries where they and other wild animals can live.
This painting is for sale 8.5″ x 11.5″ and for only $150.00! Half of the proceeds will go towards renting a fishing pond in Thailand to help conserve these wonderful cats.

Read more about fishing cats: http://www.fishingcatproject.info/

Want to hear a Fishing Cat’s meow? http://catinwater.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/embarking-on-a-mad-journey.m4a

About the painting:
I depicted the cat on a rock, which is like a small island, depicting the fragility of their existence today. The reference photo was taken from a large group of photos taken by a Russian couple who have a Fishing cat in their home. They have given open permission to use their images.

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?

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

Sacha’s portrait is the third of a series of 4 kitty paintings that I am doing for Kitty Harbor. Sacha has already been adopted, but I still love her face. Kitty Harbor really impressed me, at the end of their season, all of their kitties were adopted. There are still lots of other kitties that need to be adopted. And this painting of Sacha, a 6.5″ x 8.5″ watercolor, is for sale for $100, half of the payment goes to Kitty Harbor.

To any who have been following the saga of my husband’s odyssey through the world of better living through medicine and surgery, I want you to know that he’s home and recovering nicely. Now I have enough mental and emotional energy to get back to painting pretty kitties, landscapes and portraits..

Once again I am featuring the painting of a kitten from Kitty Harbor who was up for adoption. If Carlisle isn’t still up for adoption, I bet they have another kitten who is almost as handsome. This painting measures 6.25″ x 8.25″ and is painted on fine arches paper with transparent watercolors. It is for sale for $100.00 and half of the proceeds go to Kitty Harbor. Eventually this painting and the one of Meggy will be made into note cards.

5″ X 7″ on Arches fine watercolor paper – hand painted with Daniel Smith watercolor paint this painting is SOLD but will eventually become available at Kitty Harbor as a note card

My book is a fully illustrated nature book. On each page you will see things that I discovered as a child. I was actually surprised at how many different things I could trace back to the first few years of my life, plants, insects, animals.

I believe that children are natural scientists. Whatever environment they are home in is what they will study. I was fortunate in that my mother routinely let me outside to play. I do believe the happiest hours of my childhood were while I was watching ants, or birds, or tasting various plants. A lot of this play was solitary, but my little sister was often my sidekick as we pulled plantain shoots apart or blew dandelion seeds into the air.

This whole book will be eventually digitized at which time I will share the link with you. But in the meantime, I’ll share a couple pages for a preview.

So do you remember plants and bugs from your childhood? I am very curious to hear.