My dad rented a room from a lovely woman who had a tendency to adopt stray people. She picked them up, dusted them off, and taught them how to paint - I don’t know if she purposely did it to keep them out of trouble, but it generally did. She’s the one who introduced me to art*.

She painted a wide variety of subjects, including portraits (her official job), her cats, and frequently Al Pacino. She had several paintings of her cats around the house as well as a mural that stretched all the way around her dining room. This is one of the pictures that I have of it.

Because I think you guys will appreciate it, here’s one of my favorite stories: on top of the 4+ indoor cats that she had at any given time, she also cared for the stray and feral cats around her house. She told me that she found out that there was a possum coming by and eating their food - when I asked her what she did, she said she put out an extra bowl because she didn’t want him to be hungry, either.

She was a lovely lady and I hope you guys like her art c:

* She would absolutely die (again) if she knew that I was mostly digital, cartoon-style art. But that’s ok. XD;; She was a bit of a snob about photo-realism, but that’s ok.