The Meerkats of Washington, DC

Dive inspired me with his meerkats of Notre Dame. I will share with you the meerkats of Washington, D.C. I visited the National Zoo in April and was quite taken by these adorable creatures. (I love to converse with the zookeepers). They are always willing to share inside information such as feeding habits, mating habits and personality quirks. Unfortunately these meekats have an uncanny ability to escape from their zoo habitat and have been frequenting campaigning places in New Hampshire and Iowa.


Sarah, the Palin meerkat can see Russia from her front porch. She can skin a moose, talks like a twit and has become the sweetheart of the redneck set.


















Michelle the Bachman Meerkat is equally endearing. She confuses sociopathic serial killers with Western actors and promises to be submissive to her husband when she reaches the highest office! She is stealing the evangelical Christian voters from Sarah the Palin meerkat! (Well, Sarah isn't officially on the ticket yet)

Equally adorable and of the male persuasion is Ricky the Santorum (please Google this) meerkat. His distinguishing characteristic is one of fundamental Catholicism. (Gotta get those voters too). All of these meerkats enjoy tea parties and are funded by the multi-billionaire Koch brothers. In case you are not familiar with meerkat behavior, please research Americans for Prosperity, the 912 Patriots and other tea party groups. Most rednecks, fundamentalists and ordinary zoo visitors think that these are "grassroots" political organizations that are made up of regular, ordinary citizens. Little do they know it is an orchestrated and hugely funded scheme! This scheme was carefully orchestrated by the Cocksuckers, I mean Koch brothers. They are in the gas, energy and corporate take over business and are enjoying amazing profits since the Bush tax cuts. The Kochs are fundamentally libertarian, their father was one of the founding members of the John Birch society. They have organized a campaign to destroy Obama, pesky labor unions, public schools and the middle class.

The tea party members are made up of primarily working class and middle class people. Most of them are or were hard working, honest people. The Kochs are successfully setting them against teachers, unions and other working people by suggesting that teachers and union members have it better. The Obese Governor Christy of New Jersey called teachers welfare queens.

One tea party group has openly admitted to a goal of destroying the public school system. Let's keep those lower and middle classes stupid!

People. The meerkats are cute, but they are puppets. George W. Bush was a puppet. Obama is actually a human being with a brain. He is failing because the republicans are united in destroying him.

Unfortunately, I was not able to photograph all the Washington meerkats for you. Some were underground and receiving "slimy yet satisfying" treats from their keepers. Lucky for you, I was able to catch the cute ones with my little Nikon digicam.

Orenda, New Painting

Well, it looks like the computer gods are cooperating today, at least as far as uploading goes. Perhaps I tried to load too many at a time? Perhaps it is the particular computer. I am using the desktop now because I cannot crop with my laptop.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to get some feedback. As many of you know, I've been in an animal mode lately. This is a painting of my sister in law's beautiful Birman cat, Orenda. Orenda recently passed on to the great sunlit cushion in the sky. She lived to the ripe age of 21.

My daughter snapped this photo a couple of years ago. I found her picture and thought I'd try painting her.

Well, this proved to be quite difficult and I am not quite "finished". First of all, I had to tackle the lush interior of my sister-in-law's house. Gail's house is quite beautiful and she has impeccable taste when it comes to furnishings, pillows, color and decorating etc.

Second of all, Orenda is a fluffy, mostly white, long-haired cat. How do I capture the fur without fussing too much?

Third of all, Orenda is backlit. While this made for a beautiful photo, I found it quite challenging to capture her delicate face when I could not see it very well. I did not have another photo. I wanted to capture that wonderful back-lighting through her fur! Anyway I've been going back to this painting for several weeks and while I know I have to make a few adjustments, I thought I would ask my wonderful blogging friends for your advice. There are spots where I keep fussing (like the color of the shadow behind the red cushion on the chair). Also the pillow has a cushion sewn on top if it. It looks like a second pillow, but it is not. The patterns change. I usually avoid a lot of patterns as I don't like to get into that "tickling" mode. Sometimes I need to stop and critique. Your thoughts please?

Chiminea Cat Painting by Anita Williams

I've been into an animal kick lately. I am enjoying the responses I've gotten from the cows and the seals. I just believe that people are drawn to faces. So for those of you who like faces, I hope you enjoy Eddie in the Chiminea. Eddie is smart enough to realize that he does not like to be wet. During one of our winter snowstorms, he discovered a nice little "shelter" inside the chiminea. Unfortunately, the chimney enabled him to sneak out the top to grab the occasional unsuspecting songbird. My daughter eventually solved that problem, by placing a soccer ball on top of the opening. Eddie hasn't quite figured out why it is so dark inside.

Eddie presented a particular challenge in that he is a striped, brown tabby. Partially due to his impeccable breeding. Eddie was born to a feral father and a trailer park mother. One of my students begged me to give him a "good home". I have read that the brown tabby is very close to natural wild cat coloring. Eddie likes to accompany us on our walks through the woods where he is almost completely invisible. His coloring blends in perfectly.

Anyway, while painting, the challenge was to try to capture this beautiful coloring, and show some texture while not losing the "form" of the animal. Another challenge was capturing the snow. I blended some pthalo blue with titanium white and applied it with a wide trowel.

The surface of the chiminea was completed with a palette knife. The kitty was painted using a combination of brushes, knives, sticks and scumbling.

Painting - California Bathing Beauties

Here is a painting of a few of the sunbathers we found on the Monterey Peninsula in California last summer. These harbor seals were so relaxed and obviously comfortable with their torpedo shaped bodies.

This past winter's weather with multiple blizzards found me digging through photo albums for painting ideas. I found these "gals" to be cooperative models. (I am assuming they are gals).

I started this painting with a monochromatic value study of the rock formation. I wanted to capture the texture of the rocks and also the solidity of them. I built up several layers of paint using a palette knife, adding color and texture. I worked on the rocks exclusively for a number of sessions leaving the seals sketched in. When I finally got around to the seals, I switched to a paintbrush. Unfortunately, I think they look a little "thin" in comparison to the rocks. I wish I could have continued to build upon them, but had to let them dry off for my March show. I did post the actual photo upon my return from California last summer. You might find it if you dig around through my labels. I wasn't going for exactitude. I never do when I paint. So don't judge me! I believe the colors on the rocks are largely invented to separate the seal gray from the rock gray!