The story of Beatrice

In 1998, there was a cat named Hazel living in my back yard. She was the third generation in the family tree of Fraidy (a feral cat who had adopted me), and was the meanest cat I ever met, before or since--at least to humans. She was apparently not mean to her fellow cats, since every three to six months she was producing yet another litter of kittens. It took me two years (she was smart and wary, in addition to being mean), but I finally sequestered Hazel in my garage, trapped her, and had her spayed. I made my best effort to find homes for all those many kittens, but she left a legacy of about a dozen unclaimed, who I fed and cosseted in my back yard until they either died of old age, found another home, or disappeared in less pleasant ways (coyote or hawk).

Since she was an outdoor cat with no medical advantages, and since she seemed to produce kittens without regard to the season, some of the kittens in her litters were less than healthy. One morning in January, I came outside to discover a two-week-old black kitten lying all by itself on the sidewalk, gasping for breath. Hazel had apparently carried her there, banishing her from the litter, because she had a severe upper respiratory infection. I took the poor little thing to the vet, but was told that she was too young to handle antibiotics, and that I could either euthanize her or try to raise her with a bottle if the mama cat wouldn't take her back. I knew better than to even broach the subject with Hazel, so I bought a doll bottle, some formula, and a cat carrier, and thus started Beatrice's daily treks to work with me. She had to be fed every two hours, so there was really no other solution but to take her along. Once she got over the respiratory infection, she quickly charmed everyone at my office, including Harold Adler, a talented calligrapher and a lovely man in his 80s who rented an office from Cinema Research Corporation, where I worked as a movie title artist. He wrote this tag and taped it to a cat toy he left on my desk for her:

He perfectly captured her sweet expression in just a few strokes.

After a couple of months, Beatrice was able to stay at home, where she was joined soon after by two others of Hazel's kittens--Miniver, who was actually born in the litter before her, but who had stayed outside until a severe injury made it necessary to bring her inside to recuperate; and Dante, from Hazel's last litter, who was invited indoors because he was just too charming and cheeky not to make into a special pet.

Beatrice was quite the personality. She wasn't exactly an affectionate cat--not a lap sitter, not a bed sleeper, and she let you know with a growl within about 30 seconds of you picking her up that this was not her idea of a good time. She showed her love in more unusual ways. When I sat in my chair to read (said chair being a Mission rocker with open slat sides), I would suddenly feel claws scratching gently at my thigh, and look down to see

On her back for a belly rub--this was the "crazy eye."

Beatrice poking at me through the slats. I would hold out my hand to her, and she would flop down on her back, grab my hand with her front paws, and kick it with her back feet--never digging in her claws, never hurting me in the slightest--and then gnaw on my fingers for a bit, never biting hard enough to break the skin. She did this from a very young age (a friend of mine suggested that I change her name to Vampira) until almost the end of her life.

The other way to get Beatrice to pay attention to you was to sing or whistle. I never figured out if she loved it and wanted to encourage me to continue, or hated it and hoped she could make me stop, but if I sang to her (she preferred "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" but also responded to "Frere Jacques"), she would run into the room, jump up on my chest, and start "knitting" and purring like crazy.

My model, on the patio.

Although, as I said, she wasn't overtly affectionate, she was attentive. She didn't openly follow me around, but whatever room I ended up in--bedroom, office, kitchen, patio--she would soon be there, usually sitting across the room so she could keep an eye on me. She was also johnny on the spot whenever she heard anything that might be associated with food or a handout--paper rustling, plastic lids peeling back, the opening of the refrigerator door. She was a big fan of cheese in particular, but didn't turn up her nose at sour cream, yogurt, or scrambled eggs. And having been weaned off her formula with baby food meat from jars, the seal-breaking pop of a lid could bring her running from the opposite end of the house.

Because she was ever-present somewhere nearby, once I took up drawing and painting she made a good model, and was the only cat I have ever drawn or painted from life rather than from photos, because she would get into a pose and hold it as long as she wasn't distracted or surprised. I wish so much that I had painted more of her while I had her.

Josephine and Beatrice come to dinner.

Because of her tenuous beginnings, Beatrice had many health issues throughout her life. She was prone to respiratory infections and suffered through quite a few of them. She had a touch of congestive heart failure, and between this and the respiratory issues, she had slowed down considerably during the past few years. Two years ago, however, I took her to a specialist who suggested she have a procedure to open up her nasal passages, and this made a huge difference in her quality of life for a few years. But then, six months ago, a huge buboe appeared above her right hip.

At first, the vet thought she had suffered some trauma from a fall, as it appeared to be a hematoma, but more investigation revealed that it was hemangiosarcoma, a cancer arising from blood vessels that is considered very rare in cats (much more common in dogs). There are two forms, with the cutaneous version being operable. This was the form Beatrice's took, so the vet surgically removed the tumor, with clean margins, and we hoped that would be the end of it; but two months later she had recurrence both at the site and internally. She waxed and waned over the next few months, but she was a stubborn and determined little cat, and every time I thought we were near the end, she would rally. She met me at the front door every night, and was happiest on the nights when I showed up with El Pollo Loco just for her. She loved to hang out on the patio, sitting in the sun and smelling the breeze, and curled up on the sofa every night with Miniver beside her.

She was alert and in good spirits until Thanksgiving Day, when she seemed lethargic and didn't purr or knit when I put her on my chest. I decided to stay home from the family festivities to be with her, and she died at 4:30 that afternoon, after a brief struggle to breathe.

She is going back out to the yard where she was born, and her ashes will rest under a lavender bush just like the one from which she emerged to grace my life almost 15 years ago. She is missed already--I and the other cats keep thinking we catch sight of her, out of the corner of our eyes, and when I sit in my chair to read, I hang my hand down hoping to feel her grab it. I have had many cats in my life, and have loved them all, but Beatrice was special. Hail to you, Queen Bea.

Fall Sunday

No new paintings this weekend--I was otherwise preoccupied--but a couple of snapshots. This is the burst of blooms that greets October along the side of my house--asters that bloom once a year, and almost always open on my birthday early in the month. They are really coming into their own now, a few weeks in, and still have a couple of weeks to go before they get cut down to the ground to start over for next year. These all grew from one small 9-inch pot!

The preoccupation this weekend was with Beatrice, my cat, whose health issues are unfortunately not over, and whose outlook is shorter than I had hoped. But today she went out on the patio of her own incentive, jumped up on my little wicker sofa, and spent a few hours sleeping, watching other cats out in the yard, and sniffing the breeze. A good day.

Oops! Delible issues!

I decided while I was waiting for my show to come on at 9:00 that I would go back and paint one of my drawings from today. Imagine my surprise when I painted blithely over my first batch of bricks and discovered that the Stabilo pen I had used was not indelible! Much bleeding ensued. I went ahead and persevered (carefully), but this rather muddy mess was not what i had in mind for this picture! I'll try this one again with a waterproof ink and produce it with true colors.

Brenda Swenson frequently uses delible inks (like Tombow markers) and somehow makes beautiful paintings in which the bleed is incorporated and enhances the subject; I have not figured out how to do this yet, obviously!

I took some good reference photos today and am looking forward to painting some other versions, close-ups, other elements, etc. later in the week. What a fun short field-trip this was! Now I have my eye out for other unusual places/things to paint within five miles of my house.

Below is a photo of the place so you can get the overview.

Mission Style

I was driving west on Sherman Way across the Valley a couple of weeks ago, and decided instead of cutting down to Victory to continue on Sherman Way and see where it came out (found out it turns into Platt). Suddenly, as I rounded a curve by the medical center, I saw something that looked like part of an old mission from out of history! I was in a hurry and couldn't stop, but I resolved to come back (with my sketchbook) another day, and today was it. It has finally dipped below the 90s here this week, so I headed out of the house before 9:00 a.m. with my supplies.

I ended up only sketching for about half an hour, because my vantage point was in the full sun, and I could feel myself burning (next time, an umbrella!). But I walked around (they were having a craft fair back in the gardens in the shade, so I shopped as well) and took a lot of reference photos, and will go back and make a more careful drawing to watercolor later. Maybe even later today! but I have a couple of tasks to accomplish that I am determined to finish before my weekend is over.

I got the story from the lady who runs this place--it used to be a part of the Francis Lederer estate, which covered some 300 acres of the northwest San Fernando Valley. He was a silent film actor who was born in 1899. This building was the stables. All the buildings on the property were built in this Mission Revival style. His third wife, Marian, turned it into a gallery (Canoga Mission Gallery, the sign is still up), but now it's a combined gift shop and event center called "Hidden Chateau." Sorry to whoever named it, but SUCH an awful name for such a cool building!

Isn't that roofline fantastic? And they have little twinkly lights along the very edge all across, which looks amazing at night.

Fortunately, the building has been designated an L.A. Cultural Historic Monument, so they can't tear it down; but Marian recently passed away, the nieces and nephews inherited and promptly sold up, and now an assisted living center is due to be built cheek by jowl, cutting off part of the gardens. (HOW could they sell this? I would have moved in!) Southern California is not kind to those who would preserve anything sitting on valuable real estate...

I used a really thin pen for these (Stabilo fine 0.4) and a much sketchier style than usual. The front of the building is thickly mortared pale stone, interspersed with these little patches of brick here and there, so on this second one I mostly just drew in the brick patches and a few clumps of the stone here and there, plus the "fans" around the door and window. Wonderfully irregular.

What I'm reading

I just finished a trilogy set in between the World Wars by mystery writer Rennie Airth, and decided to do a quick rendition of the cover of the third to accompany my review of his books on my library's blog. Here is the watercolor below, and you can go here to read the review, if you like. It was a good series! Lettering is always an interesting undertaking--the tag line underneath was supposed to read "A JOHN MADDEN MYSTERY SET IN WORLD WAR II ENGLAND" and though I thought I was being proportionate in my rendition of the cover, I had to both omit and abbreviate to fit in what I did!

Sketch Journal Composition

Our final lesson at Brenda's workshop was to take disparate elements and put them together in a sketch "collage" of images and words. I had a hard time with this--I had three different ideas, none of which could I get to work--so in desperation (and at Brenda's suggestion) I retreated to doing a collage of my tools. Not what I wanted for my final project, but maybe I'll work out the other ideas and share them here sometime.

Before and after

From Brenda Swenson's Sketch Journaling workshop, three weekends ago...

In my previous post with the kitty and the Eiffel Tower, I had been hasty to paint, so on Saturday morning when everyone else was just starting their painting, I was already done. I decided to get out my second set of personal items and draw those, hoping to have time to paint them as well before everyone else was finished.

I sometimes tend to be lazy when it comes to drawing--often just putting down the bare minimum pencil line and going straight to paints--but since Brenda makes us do contour-line in pen, that's not an option, and after the easy sketch of the Giant Cat, I decided to take on a challenge by selecting some VERY complicated jewelry. It was a major test of both patience and observation, and I barely finished the drawing by the time everyone else was done with their painting.

Here is the drawing, with pencil lines indicating where the shadows will be. (We are working in a room with fluorescent lighting, which isn't great for contrast, so we have been taking our objects outside into the sun and turning them round and round to get the best shadow pattern to unite the objects in the painting into a true grouping.) The matching bracelet and earrings and this compact belonged to my mom. You can see the writing that goes with it below, in the completed sketch journal painting.

I finally had time to paint this, three weeks later. Capturing the shine of the pearlescent central stones and the glitter of the rhinestones set in silver was virtually impossible with watercolor (or at least at my level of expertise), but I did capture the colors--I love that ice blue. These took me back to when people still dressed up to go out to dinner, and children were left at home with the babysitter (in my case, Mrs. Rosenberg and her favorite, the Lawrence Welk Show), but it was still fun to live vicariously by watching my mom put on her powder and paint, her stockings and heels, her full-skirted dresses, and the perfect jewelry to complement her outfit. In my eyes, she was the epitome of glamour.

Here we are when I was about 3 years old. Mom would have been 33, Dad 35.

And here they are at about 40 and 42. Doesn't Dad's shirt look like a Charlie Sheen special?