On the First Day of Christmas, my True Love Gave to Me….

At December 28, 2012
By Tara Fly
In Art, Cat portraits, Cats, Family, Holiday Seasons *shudder*, holidays
2

A Viking Cat in a …..TARDIS?

This dapper young feline bears a striking resemblance to a time-traveling doctor:

The lady who commissioned this piece asked me to paint Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” as the background, in reference to the episode “Vincent and the Doctor”.
I was flattered that someone would think me capable of recreating a famous painting. LOL

I had something nearly finished to publish here on December 17th, but it was quite depressing for a Christmas post…. as I was experiencing “the winter blues”; depressed and anxious, dreading each day, alluding to various stresses we’ve been dealing with (without mentioning details), grieving over lost children I never knew, and of course, making a few sarcastic references to The End of The World.

After two early appearances in December at the Westminster Farmer’s Market…

… I spent the latter half of this month buried under a mountain of blankets, eating comfort foods (lots of homemade pumpkin pie), and watching pre-recorded episodes of Glee.
Oh, and working on commissioned portraits that I’d assured customers would be ready by Christmas.

A Viking Warrior Cat on-board his long-ship, crossing the dark ocean to conquer new lands:

This fella is Angus McMeowd ….a.k.a. Otis the tabby, named after “Big Otis”, a fictional character on the cover of Kellogg’s OKs cereal boxes in the 1960′s.
I “borrowed” the Scotsman’s costume to dress this handsome boy.

And here is a new portrait of a beautiful Bengal kitty as a Redcoat soldier:

As far as Christmas goes, it was a small quiet affair; just Joe, myself, and the kids.
He surprised me by bringing the Christmas tree down from the attic on Thanksgiving!

I don’t really collect fancy or expensive ornaments (although someday I may), preferring to use whatever we have on-hand.

This year, we made paper-chain garland to string around the tree.

I hung leftover cat art ornaments from my craft shows…. and we filled in the gaps with pine-cones.

It was a simple and fun tree, and I think, really captured who we are as a family.

Oh… and I’ll share one brief encounter that brightened one of my otherwise hectic work-days:

While setting up a cookie display in our bakery, a family passed by…
and I overheard the little boy asking his mother whether we made our Christmas tree cookies using real Christmas trees!

I wanted very much to reply,
“Why, yes! In fact, we use actual pine sap in our secret recipe.
They taste just like real trees!“

Yummmm nom nomnom.

Tara Fly

A scatterbrained crazy cat lady who divides her time between painting portraits of cats dressed in period costumes, watching BBC mini-series, raising wild children, and baking pumpkin pies seasoned with cat hair. Would you like some fur-flavoured coffee?