cat – John Manders

Irish Jack the Cat

What a wonderful little video clip! If you’ve read Catherine Friend’s The Perfect Nest, you’ll enjoy watching this Perfect Nest in Ireland

Festival in Venice

There’s a scene in The Famous Nini when the king declares National Nini Day and everyone celebrates.

Kerry Martin, the senior design editor, wasn’t happy with the scene as I’d depicted it in the thumbnail sketch with crowds on a bridge over a canal (p 17). I worked up 3 rough alternative sketches—where we see Nonna & Nini through the crowd, where the crowd is seen from inside the caffè, where Nonna & Nini are out among the crowd—and then did a tight version of the winner.

Giuseppe Verdi & Nonna

Giuseppe Verdi makes his entrance in The Famous Nini.

More research for Nonna’s costume can be found here.

Amazing library cat

An interesting little article about a real-life Clarence the Copy Cat—although this kitty seems to enjoy his de-mousing duties.

Funeral for el Señor

A sketch of the funeral procession from Señor Don Gato. I drew this in 2002, and it was the first time my illustrations looked painterly rather than cartoony. I consciously mimicked Diego Velasquez for this project. You’ll notice that in the sketch I amateurishly put interesting details in the gutter—the vertical strip in the center where the 2 pages meet—which had to be moved to one side in the painting.

Another Señor Don Gato post here.

Here are odds and ends from the reference file I amassed for this project. I liked the banner in the Goya painting and adapted it for this scene.