When I was in sixth and/or seventh grade, I used to spend lots of time making these cats in elaborate old-timey flower-covered outfits.   My sketch last night reminded me of them, and so now you will bear witness to the few of the series I called ‘Pussy Willows’ that I could dig up without the help of my mother’s basement, where I’m sure far more (and most of the best ones) reside.

This one has the expected basic element of every one, and is one of the nicer ones I have on me at the moment: 

   Curls, tiny four-petal flowers, a cameo, a statement flower hAT, big shoulder sleeves, parasol, long ribbon, lace ruffle somewhere.   It’s like a game of bingo if you get all of them.  

Continue onward to see child me attempt elegance several times.

Minus parasol, but plus Feathers and random drop gemstones.  I really liked sunflowers as a center stage flower, and I think all the big floppy elements on the hat must have been a personal challenge to not make all the tiny square-four-petal flowers I used on everything else. 

Speaking of challenges, this was my attempt at a less economically well-off Pussy Willow, so she has some patches and tatters and you can see her boots.  She may have been the first one to have visible feet and is one of the few I have with an obvious tail.  Ten year old me has captioned this one, ‘the flower seller’.  

Another challenge of a shorter dress, I think!  I was looking for ways to still make that look old-timey and elegant without any real access to or mind toward research, because I was a literal child drawing cats in dresses.   Are her legs furry or are my lines just kinda sdkfjsf around her calves?  Was I trying to indicate lower status with a rumpled bit of apron or higher status with something elegantly ‘draped’? Who knows.  I did figure out that buttons were a thing at this point, though of all the bodies thus far depicted it’s the only one that doesn’t look structured as to require them.  Also no need for necklines if you just have a lot of fur and a cameo choker. 

Here we figured out the buttons.  I feel strongly that I had to have seen something to inspire this one.  She has so much hair down her back, so imagine the mass of it that must be contained in that hat.   This one was rushed and was I think going to employ a big split in the dress, hence my erased attempts at a leg, but I think even then I couldn’t reconcile it with the old-timey look and I was scared of people saying I was trying to make something ‘sexy’, so she just kind of tapers off into heels and nothing.  I do enjoy the choice of a lily for a statement flower on this hat, though. 

Tried one more modern and casual.  Sandals and an anklet and a Watch, now it is the future.  Ye Olde Sunflower Hat remains steadfast.  She is very cute, despite being atypical. 

Oh this one has a tiny boa, I’ve just noticed that now.   Sporting it all here, the sunflower hat, the no shoes, the ribbons, ruffle, cameo, tiny buttons, parasol… No visible hair on this one, not even a single curl.  I dig her butt lily. 

And then this one, which was the one i was looking for when I started to go find these for scanning and I cannot find physically in my house, but I had scanned back in 2007 on my parents’ scanner. Which means it looks like it was scanned with a piece of glass and some charcoal aimed strategically at the sun.  

But

Flowers just everywhere, like an infestation.  Covered the swing with them, the parasol, the hat.  I remember being very proud of this one for all her floral details.  I think she might even have a fur pattern, with color spots on her arms.   It is tragic this scanned so rottenly.  I’m sure it’s still around to try again sometime.

I didn’t know at the time that these were anti-anxiety drawings.  Getting lost in making these little flowers and other fiddly bits gave me something to do and focus on when I was feeling Off.   I did a lot of this one through a religious instruction that I thought very little of even then. 

So that’s a thing I did when I was a smaller creature.  I got self conscious about them eventually, because they didn’t fit what my friends and I were making in our games together, so I did them and didn’t show anyone for a little bit and then phased them out.  

And then applied their extra fiddly nonsense to other characters.