Throughout my years at Marywood, I have found myself finding little time to make art just for fun and without the pressure of it being absolutely “perfect”. Though, no such artwork exists…

So, I figured that now that summer has started, I should dedicate time to making art that simply makes me happy. For many artists, our internal critic can be harsh at times. It’s important for all of us to work towards having a sort of on/off switch for these pressures we place on ourselves. I find that it can feel extremely healing by allowing our inner child to take over during the art creation process from time to time. And we may even find ourselves surprised by the results of these moments we are more gentle with ourselves!

For this week’s blog post, I decided to make a portrait of my cat. I got her as an ESA during my first year at Marywood, and she is my baby. I wanted to capture her essence in this painting rather than sticking to what a photorealistic piece might depict. So, I aimed to use purely fun colors and worked in a cartoon-style.

So… here is Penny!

Meow