I have been working on a series called Rumi Cats, which puts cats and quotes from Rumi together. If you don’t know who Rumi is, he was a philosopher and writer who lived a very long time ago. According to Wikipedia, “Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic.”
I love his quotes and short poems, which have been translated into numerous languages. I LOVE cats and Rumi so I thought it would be fun to put those two loves together in artwork. I created eight in the Rumi Cat series, although I could do tons more since I have a book full of quotes from Rumi.
I have wanted to do artwork around Rumi quotes for a long time since they are so inspiring. But I figured everyone on the planet has done the typical “new age” artwork with Rumi quotes.
So I went for the second-best idea, putting 2 philosophical entities together: Rumi and The Cat. Because after all, aren’t cats the most philosophical creatures on the planet. (Do you know about Henri the French philosophical cat? I love that cat.)
I had so much fun doing this series. I do believe that drawing cats is my all time favorite thing to do, next to having them lay on my lap and purr. I have two cats in my home, I can’t live without cats. I can live just fine without a man, but I’m lost and lonely without cats.
These were all done in my fav program, Adobe Photoshop. They were created using lots of different images to create the layers. The cat body was created using an old textile design by William Morris, who lived at the turn of the 19th century and whose works are now in the public domain. (Of course, my Rumi Cats are NOT in the public domain so please don’t use them in your artwork.)
