Introducing Trevor the Cat
CAT ON PIANO
In the past year or so some things have been good, and other things have been less good. Mostly good I am glad to say. But one of the less good happenings was the sudden closure of a very promising art gallery chain.
It happens that retail art galleries come and go, sigh!
Usually they vanish leaving artists penniless and without their art.
Not so this time because the gallery staff gave me a warning and a chance to get my work back just before their bailiffs came in.
The gallery directors had been wooing me to create and supply paintings and prints for a while. Eventually I had painted a small set of new work as requested featuring Trevor the Cat. The pictures were created using a very specific technique. An earlier style of mine that is nothing like my current cityscapes or landscapes.
Those who know my previous work might recognise Trevor as the skinny black cat often found in a naïve looking kitchen. This naïve painting style using black outlines, and palette knife with scumble and glaze, looks child-like. Well of course it should do, because it was based on children’s art. My own children actually. I happily used the simple outline and thick paint system because it was such good fun. And it made people happy. An ideal language for a stroppy black cat.
Anyway, I got the originals back and I have now decided to print and promote these images myself. They join my existing portfolio of cats and kitchen images. I self-publish them from my studio as signed and numbered archival-quality fine-art prints.
Bingo, so they are now on our own family art-print website huge-wool.flywheelsites.com.
The original paintings are also available on www.colinruffell.com
where there is also a video showing Trevor the Cat as an iconic role setter and subject of many other paintings and prints.
The original Trevor the Cat lived to a ripe old age but has long since passed over the rainbow bridge to cat heaven, or wherever cats go.
He cost me a small fortune in vet’s fees after he was involved in a road accident. But eventually he became very popular in print. His image is collected by cat lovers from all over the world, and we were repaid many times over.
Nowadays we have the dubious pleasure of living with another black cat called Carly. She has yet to be featured in paint and printing ink. Watch this space.
