The Roadside Artist

Oregon art, cartoons, illustrations and more…

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Hammie The Cat’s Story

May 23rd, 2007 · 2 Comments

Oh, Hammie the Cat - the hamster cat, is all too real. This is just a cartoon-caricature of him…

Hammie The Cat cartoon
Get the Hammie tshirt for only $9.99

For those of you who have been reading my blog, you know about my rescued feral kittens. I wrote about them here and here, and you’ll see this little guy in both of them: The first rescued feral kitten from last year was the orange no-tail I named Hamster cat. Well, here he is today…

Hammie The Cat
Hammie The Cat tshirt for $9.99

He isn’t exactly tail-less, as you can see - he has more of a POOF-BALL for a tail. I guess you could call it a bobtail ..sort of… More after the jump, including a close-up photo and a the truth about Hammie’s future…


get the t-shirt at Zazzle

Such a sweet little guy! And life seems so unfair at times.

Hammie “Hamster Cat” is alive and well, thanks to some quick intervention. He is very affectionate, but I think he’s a bit traumatized and has abandonment issues. For instance, he likes to/needs to have a “binky” (a piece of cloth to chew on while he falls asleep), perhaps because he was alone for many days before I rescued him. He was only about four weeks old at the time so I’m sure he was starving. I fed him on a bottle for a while, until he learned to eat solid food. He was really too young to lose his mamma. But then, that’s why I say that life is so unfair at times.

Hammie is always in a good mood, now. Well, he gets lots of attention, so why shouldn’t he feel better? In the cartoon, I imagine Hammie thinking that people are pretty stupid, because he tells us what he wants and we can’t figure it out. How can anyone misunderstand “meow” for petesake?

He is about 7 months old now and has really blossomed since his days as a nearly-dead four week old feral kitten. For his sake, I may do a whole series of Hammie The Cat cartoons. You know, just to help pay for his room and board.

Hammie the tail-less feral at 7 mos old

Truthfully, it’s a difficult situation because I have a few other rescued ferals, too, and this gets to be more than a handful after a while. Hammie is sweet enough to be adopted out but homes are few and far between AND his little emotional issues would certainly get in the way.

It can all be very stressful: I already spend more on cat food than many people spend on their own meals for their whole familes. Nevertheless, as long as I am able I will continue to take care of Hammie and his friends. If you get a shirt, though, it will help.

$9.99 Value Tee | Premium Pastel and Dark Shirts | Hammie Zazzle T-shirts

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Tags: Art-Cartoons · Cats

My Art in Academic Circles, Painting in a Book

December 24th, 2006 · 2 Comments

Published by Utah State University, The Journal of Western Literature requested publication rights for one of my works…

The Journal Of Western American Literature - the Fall 2005 edition features one of the better known paintings, Hardman Oregon, Ghost Town a watercolor impressionist landscape painting

The Fall 2006 issue features one of my Oregon impressionist watercolor paintings. You can probably pick up a copy at your local academic bookstore (colleges/universities).

The Journal Of Western American Literature - the Fall 2005 edition features one of my paintings, Hardman Oregon, Ghost Town
The Riddle Of Ghost Towns

A near-front article features one of my better known Oregon impressionist paintings, Ghost Town Hardman Oregon. It would have been lovelier in color, but this is an academic publication after all. And I’m proud that they chose me to illustrate this important subject.

They gave me a mini-bio at the end. It’s hard to condense everything I do into a short piece, so I found the extracted version a bit confusing. But if it brings one new person to my work, I’m more than happy.

Featuring an impressionist watercolor painting - the Fall 2005 edition features one of the better known Chriss Pagani paintings, Hardman Oregon, Ghost Town
In Your Face, Picasso!

Thanks, USU.

Utah State University, Western American Literature

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Tags: News

Paintings A Last Minute Entry at The Fair…

August 17th, 2006 · 2 Comments

California Gull For those of you who weren’t there, I had a couple of paintings at the Tillamook County Fair. It was a last minute thing and I couldn’t submit my best paintings because they are all on gallery-wrapped canvas and the fair requires regular frames. They are kind of behind the times in that respect.

Anyway, I submitted two bird paintings, and they won second and third place. The higher placing painting was the California Gull, which was NOT the best of the two in my opinion. I preferred the Snowy Plover. Well, judges are an odd bunch.

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Tags: News

Impression of Cape Kiwanda Graphite Sketch

August 13th, 2006 · 1 Comment

A very quick pencil sketch… Art is about perception, and in the realm of perception less is more. The mind is the canvas, imagination the paint…

Cape Kiwanda in its many layers, rendered in graphite on 9x12 paper by Pagani, 2006
Cape Kiwanda
9″ x 12″ graphite, by Pagani 2006

A freeform sketch in pencil, sitting at the Cape parking lot and being overrun with construction equipment for yet another hotel. This is nature, and it will not last much longer
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Tags: Art-Drawing