Sustained Investigation #9

Artist's Statement:

The idea behind this piece was to create a storybook kind of scene, the kind that you would see in a children's book. I kind of went off of the concept of a Cat Prince, who is best friends with cats, and leads them on a search or into battle. I think that the original idea was leading into battle in a kind of urban setting, with cats all over the place. I was inspired by a kind of river of cats idea, where there are so many cats they become a river, and just flow in one direction. I wanted to capture this feel of movement, so I tried to have cats in different running positions.

For materials, I chose to use gouache in particular because I wanted a kind of fantasy setting, and I thought gouache would accomplish that. I also wanted to use gouache because there is a connection to my own cats. Perviously, I had made a work of art, using gouache, and left it out to dry, when my cats knocked over the glass of water I had there, and ruined the piece. For this reason, I had a connection between gouache and cats.

I changed the concept some from the original idea. Originally, it was much more heroic, like a charge into battle. In this piece, it looks more like they are being led on a search. I like this better since it doesn't imply violence, althought the idea of cats going into batter led by a child riding a giant cat is compelling. I made the deliberate choice to not fill the background in, because I didn't want to detract from the foreground. I also decided to make all the background colors fairly monotone and neutral, so that the bright orange and tabbies of the cats would stand out.