White Persian Cat Icon

These Cute Cat icons have just been released over at the Iconfactory. The collection includes six cat breeds: the Abyssinian, American Shorthair, Bombay, Russian Blue, Siamese and White Persian.

It was a snowy weekend in January, when these super cute, kawaii inspired cat illustrations first turned up. It started with one, and although I wasn’t sure what to do with them, they gradually expanded into a whole family of cat characters and suddenly it became clear to me, that they wanted to be icons.

Now I’m writing from the middle of July. There’s a heat wave. Summer dresses made of cotton or linen, watermelon, iced coffee, Gazpacho (cold Spanish vegetable soup), Chlodnik (Polish chilled beetroot soup), Ajo Blanco (Spanish chilled almond soup), nectarines, feta cheese and midnight swims in the lake are my life savers. And the creative process for Cute as a Button illustrations seems far away. In deep winter. But here they are, the first volume of Cute Cat icons.

Tags: cats, character, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, illustration, Japan, kawaii

iPhone photography: birch and snow

These birches grow in the park behind the bus stop. It looks like the branches are sugar-coated! Although it was dark I had to pull out my camera. The photos are in colour but the landscape is in black and white. Monochrome. This scene makes me think of woodblock printing, linocuts, engraving and etching. And again, I’m inspired to create patterns for fabrics.

iPhone photography: frosted birch trees

Scottish Fold cat

And now there are more kittens in the litter. Pleased to introduce this marmalade tabby, an illustration of a  Scottish Fold.

Expanding, meeting new friends, participating in group projects and finding inspiration. Closing in to focus on personal projects and deep connections with both online and offline friends and loved ones. And to swing back and forth between expanding and finding focus. Last year was an expanding year for me, this year I intend to be focused and yet open.

iPhone photography: birch branches

This extraordinarily snowy winter we’ve been giving different kinds of snow names. Feather snow, icing sugar, ice mist, castor sugar, sea salt flakes, snowball snow, movie snow… It’s been playful and imaginative.

I enjoy studying thoughts and ideas, the origin of words, to broaden my knowledge and explore the background. This winter I found out that it’s it’s a popular urban legend that the Inuit or Eskimo have an unusually large number of words for snow. And here I’d been saying “did you know that the Inuit have lots of words for snow!”…

Tags: black and white, carpe diem, cats, character, creativity, cute, Cute as a Button, fabric, focus, illustration, inspiration, iPhoneography, kawaii, letters, monochrome, snow

Bombay

During the weekend, this cute little character appeared out of nowhere.

It’s funny how things can happen unexpectedly! When I look at the illustration I can see how it’s inspired by kawaii and characters in Japanese packaging design, but at the time I had quite different plans for my weekend and this cat seemed to appear of his own accord.

Birman

I started making a few friends for him, but I can’t think of a good name for the series yet. Does anyone have any ideas?

I thought these cats might make nice prints and later on this week I’ll do some testing to see how they come out on paper.

Well, now I think it’s time to curl up with a book and a cup of hot chocolate to wind down from all the excitement these cute cats brought me!

Tags: cats, character, creative process, cute, Cute as a Button, illustration, Japan, kawaii