Cat Advent Calendar

I've been excitedly working on this puzzle all year, starting with a quick sketch that I plotted out. To do my imagination honor, I contacted Karen Gillmore, an artist whose cat comics I have been enjoying over the years, and was delighted when she said she could make my sketch come to life! 

Working with Karen has been wonderful, and every time that she would send in work for a deadline, I would *squeee* with joy over how cute all of the cats are!

From my quick sketch to Karen's developed sketch (above), then lines inked in and my spacing for each of the 25 sections of advent, shown below.

Next step was color blocking, then taking it from the digital to the physical, and watercoloring! The final watercolor, at 19x12" had to be stitched together and cleaned up again, so back to the computer. Look forward to the color block version being shared as a desktop wallpaper when it gets closer to December!

And here is the final, adorable art, ready to be UV printed and cut into many little puzzles that all fit together as one big puzzle!

Do you see your own cat here? Y'all have sent me cat pics over the years, and I sent them to Karen to add where she would. Of course all my kitties are in there, can you spot them? And just like my Koi Pond puzzle, there has to be a little fantasy mixed in, because what is life without the unexpected?

Now, here is the bad news... I've put everything into getting Puzzle Jam South started this year, and am plum burned out. I don't know if I will have the creativity on tap to puzzle out the sections and get it all completed by mid-November. I have a back burner idea, but that is also in the works. Turns out it is far harder to do all the things than I would have thought! 

So where does that leave you? I know you want this puzzle as much as I do! The best thing to do is to sign up for my newsletter, and confirm that, indeed, you do want to get a cat in your inbox. I'll keep you all in the loop with that backburner plan, and be sending out a link to get the desktop wallpaper in mid-November, and you don't want to miss out on that adorable gift! 

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all things Cat Advent below!