14/100 - Fur mask
Hands were the subject of my previous post which prompted me to show my hand on today's picture. This is something I do quite often because the work of human hands is quite meaningful to me.
Some years ago I tried to put my feelings about hands in a grungy looking sticker design. The thought was fate is not in the lines of your hands, as palmistry would have it, but in what you choose to do with them.
Not the most clever idea but I still think about it often.
Today's drawing depicts a furry monster and it is one of my ongoing attempts at creating an imaginary character out of one of the cats I live with. He's a furry thing and a constant source of joy, and I don't quite understand how the sense of wonder about this creature doesn't seem to dry up. His features are not unique but I can't stop marvelling at them, the long whiskers, soft fur-less paws, enormous ears. And speaking of hands, the whole relationship is very tactile too, our hands relate constantly to this creature that we share a life with, yet, we don't have any certainty about his mind.
Our minds don't relate to each other through a spoken human language so in a sense the cat is an alien to us. By drawing an imaginary, strange face, on an otherwise familiar body I'm trying to convey that gap, and that sense of wonder. It's a bit cartoony no doubt, but I still trust even cartoons can communicate deep emotions.
This masked furry cat-like face lives on a 3" by 3.5" piece of birch plywood and it's up for adoption here(sold).