Watercolors by Mimi Torchia Boothby

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.