Dear Friends,
Welcome to the first edition of the Grazia Felina. If somebody forwarded it to you there's a subscription form at the bottom.


Fist of all I hope that the New Year got off to the right start with you. May 2007 be a joyful, active and satisfying year full of kindness and fascinating discoveries. I wish you and your cats to stay well, happy and creative.

This issue should have been ready a while ago and I would like to apologize to those of you who maybe have been waiting for it. One of my new year's resolutions for 2007 is to be more consistent in my work!

The Cat Art Club has been formed last summer. It came to be because I felt that my passion for depicting cats needs sharing. Then, when the domain name has been registered and the website already up and running ta-da... the new name, much more to the point, romantic, beautiful, fragrant new name revealed itself to me and I just couldn't let it go. That's how our Cat Art Club got its Car Art Garden.

This very important part of the site went live in December shortly before Christmas. It took me a while to prepare it and I hope it will come handy for those of you with the creative urges but no formal training.

I deeply believe in the importance of the artistic skills. The modern trend is to neglect learning in favour of the intuition. A lot of artists feel too proud to accurately reproduce Nature. It seems they aim to challenge it with their own creation.

I feel that it's time we learn some respect. There's no shame in the realistic, figurative art. It just takes effort and dedication to master and not everyone is prepared to labour at it.
On the other hand a lot of people believe that you need some kind of a special gift to be able to draw realistically. That common preconception drives a lot of amateur and beginner artists into the abstract fields but the truth is that you can't sufficiently hide your lack of knowledge behind the accidental shapes and the splodges of colour. It's much morerewarding to face your gremlins and to see how quickly theyare turning to dust.

You wouldn't attempt to speak the foreign language without learning few words first, and nobody expects you to ride a bicycle after the first attempt. You know that you have to have some swimming lessons before you swim and some driving lessons before you drive. The same applies to drawing. It's as possible to learn to draw as it is possible to learn to write. The important point here is to discard the preconception of the special gift. Artistic talent is one thing, the ability to draw is the other. The ability to see and accurately record it on paper is just a tool you need (or ironically used to need) to express your artistic ideas better.

Drawing is a skill which I have acquired in the University and on the pages of the Cat Art Garden I will try to help to learn it to everyone interested because it's just too much joy to keep all to myself.

How to Draw a Cat Tutorial

It's always a pleasure to discover the like-minded people. Last month I came across this place called Big Art Blog.

It's the place for the artists to freely share their work, beginners and professionals alike. It gives the sort of feel good vibes so much needed for the creative souls. I hope to make a feature about it soon.

Last month Cat Art Garden featured the cat art collector Renata Dumitrascu.

Poetry Contest.
Our first free poetry contest Cat Musing just has been announced today. Its success or failure largely depends on you. Our club is still very young and relies a lot on the word of mouth. If you know someone who might be interested to take part you might want to forward them this newsletter. We'll announce the winner on the Easter Sunday 8th April 2007

Here's the humorous quote from my favourite P.G.Wodehouse as the desert:

"Cats, as a class have never completely got over the snootiness caused by the fact that in Ancient Egypt they were worshiped as gods. This makes them prone to set themselves up as critics and censors of the frail and erring human beings whose lot they share."

Kind regards,
Your Anna,
Founder of the Cat Art Club.