Thai rice field planted to make a picture of a cat by artist farmer

The Bangkok Post has published they really nice and interesting picture of a cat holding onto a fish and about to eat it. It looks a bit like a painting but when you inspect it carefully you can see that it is a rice field. Criss-crossing the field are pedestrian walkways for the farmers to gain access to the field I guess.

The rice field picture of a cat was created by a farmer and an artist: Thunyapong Jaikum in rice fields in the Chiang Province.

The photo is from Reuters.

The work of Thunyapong Jaikum in rice fields in the Chiang Province. Image: Reuters from the artist I guess.

They expect thousands of people to turn up to have a look at it. And to enjoy it I'm told they built or are building viewing platforms as that is the only way you can enjoy it.

The photograph must have been taken with a drone from several hundred feet up. And that's one problem with this excellent project. You won't get the same view from a viewing platform which is perhaps 80 feet up.

As you can see it is green and brown with some grey for the fish.

I'm not sure how they did it but the green areas are probably the growing rice in the field while the brown areas are probably the earth (or different coloured rice seedlings).

How did the artist map it out? They don't explain. I'm going to guess but I could be completely wrong! They clearly used a drone to photograph the finished image.

I would like to suggest that they used the same drone to create the image. There were two people. One operated the drone and the artist did the marking out.

The artist was able to look at himself as he marked out the ground because with these drones you have a screen on the controls which allows you to see what the drone sees.

As the artist was able to see himself on the ground he could move around marking out the dark areas with poles or some other brightly coloured object which was easy to see from hundreds of feet up.

When using those marked out areas he was able to plant the rice or clear the rice from those areas. I would think it was likely that he planted all the rice so it was all green and then removed some of the green by removing the planted rice to reveal the earth below.

If the brown areas are not earth they'll be some other plant as I am told the rice plant does not change colour when growing. Although the Bangkok Post says that the rice seedlings change colour from brown to green. My research says otherwise.

"No, rice does not change color while growing. The color of rice remains consistent throughout its growth cycle. Rice plants typically have green leaves during the growing stages, and as they mature, they produce rice grains that can vary in color depending on the variety." - AI computer Poe.

The result is a high quality image; done very well. Well done to the man.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Gustav Klimt's masterpiece is the most expensive artwork ever auctioned in Europe and his studio cats destroyed his drawings!

Gustav Klimt had about eight cats in his studio destroying his drawings. He was a cat lover. No question about it. The picture below is of Klimt and his cat 'Katz' - a German surname from the German word "Katze." meaning cat.

Klimt and Katz. Credits: Far Out / WikiArt / Picryl)

He did not like to paint himself and preferred to paint women. His studio was a complete mess according to art critic Arthur Roessler, who visited the artist's studio. He was surprised perhaps shocked at the conditions under which Klimt worked.

The description is of a pile of drawings and papers together with up to 10 meowing and purring cats, play-fighting with each other. Roessler was surprised to see the cats which spoiled "hundreds of the most beautiful drawings".

Gustav Klimt appeared to be unconcerned. When the art critic queried what he was doing in allowing the cats to damage his artwork, he said that it doesn't matter even if they crumple and tear the papers because urine "makes the best fixing agent!"

But the fact is that apparently urine had damaged the drawings. Perhaps Gustav Klimt had got used to the smell of it. Domestic cat urine does not make a fixing agent by the way.

Gustav Klimt is in the news not because of his love of cats and allowing his cats to rummage around his studio which appears to have been in a complete mess, but because his works are being fully appreciated by the buying public as a painting of his, Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan) is the most expensive artwork ever auctioned in Europe at $108 million. That price includes the commission to the auctioneer which is known as the buyer's premium.

The actual hammer price was £74 million (US$94.35 million). It exceeded the presale estimate of £65 million by a big margin. The previous European auction record was US$104.3 million (£65 million)

Sleeping Cat by Mori Kansai

This is an artwork by a Japanese artist who lived between 1814 and 1894. Not a lot is written about him on the Internet but I picked up his painting of a sleeping cat on Twitter. He is said to be "a distinguished representative of the Maruyama school" and he presided over the activities of the Joun-sha Kyoto painting circle according to the Saru Gallery. He used a variety of techniques including ink painting and he painted directly rather than sketching beforehand. His name is written as follows in Japanese: 寛斎 森.

Sleeping Cat by Mori Kansai.

He studied Nanga style painting. This was a school of Japanese painting which was very popular in the late Edo period. It was popular with the literati artists i.e. the well-educated people who were interested in literature. They admired traditional Chinese culture. The paintings were made in monochrome black ink. Nanga painting is also referred to as "literati painting" or "Southern painting". The painting on this page appears not to be in this style. I suspect that the colours were far more vibrant when it was created. It is distinctly faded. The Nanga style of painting always depicted traditional Chinese subjects. 

I'd like to comment on the painting of the cat on this page by Mori Kansai. It is notable that this cat is obese. That is not a criticism of the painting because I am sure that he painted it literally. 

Perhaps he lived with cats for a cat. The painting looks faded but you can tell that this is a tricolour or tortoiseshell-and-white cat which is very popular in Japan. There is a hint of the Van marking on the forehead. The cat's tail is also coloured and not white as is most of the body of the cat.

This is a standard calico cat in Japan of that time but he or she is obese! I'm going to speculate wildly and say that this is a cat that lived with the artist. He loved his cat and gave her treats resulting in obesity. This is a female cat because all tortoiseshells and variants on the tortoiseshell coat are nearly always females. If they are male, they are sterile.

One last point: this cat is not genuinely sleeping but snoozing. The body position indicates that. It is too alert to be genuinely sleeping. He should have titled it 'Cat Snoozing'. It doesn't sound as good though.