Arts and Cats at the Pumpkin Patch

October 07, 2022 by Sylvie in Art

Hello Kitten Academicians, it’s Syl!

We’re now approaching 3 years of Kitten Academy themed art prompts with the first one being “KA Inktopurr” in 2019. At the time, I had no idea what I was getting into but I wanted to stir up the creatives in the community and see more KA related fanart. Now, we have a regularly active, multi-talented art community. I think it was a successful last minute idea! Over the years I’ve adjusted the schedule and right now every other month feels like the best routine that hits major holidays and seasonal changes.

Speaking of holidays and seasonal changes - October’s art prompt is “Pumpkin Patch” themed and includes many things you’d expect to find at one, as well as some additional fall related terms! To participate please tweet your creation using the hashtag #KAPumpkinPatch2022. If you’re not a Twitter user you can post your work in the arts-and-crafts channel in the Kitten Academy Discord for Patreon subscribers.

In August, we had “KA Back to School” which was hosted exclusively through the Discord server. Our creative community is regularly active, allowing members to compliment and discuss each other's art in a contained manner across various hobbies.

I greatly appreciate and thank everyone that participates in these prompts and brings their own creative aspirations to the community. I can’t wait to see what you have in store for Kitten Academy’s trip to the Pumpkin Patch!

Below you’ll find submissions from earlier this year featuring our Back to School prompt, as well as KA Beach Party 2022!

If you would like to know more about upcoming prompts and activities, you can find me on Twitter (@Sylhouettes) as well as in the Kitten Academy Discord server.

To view all the past art prompts click here.

[Quick note from the editor: Aside from Tommy having broken Teespring — we’ll try again soon — we’re up-to-date with the T-Shirt Schedule!]

Graduation for Ocean's Kits!

September 26, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Graduation, Photos

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

We’re still slowly working towards getting everything back up to our usual standards, but this journey lately feels like it may be a thousand miles, and so we start with the few steps we can take and build from there.

So, we bring you our latest photoshoot - plus a few odds and ends from the camera roll, in honor of Ocean, her kits, and Trinket all being ready to find their adopters — or vice-versa. You can apply here on our application!

It’s our impression that Ocean is a supremely dedicated mom and might do well to be adopted with one of her kittens — perhaps Caliper. Trinket loves to play with all three boys and otherwise has a hard time making new friends, so we would really love to see her go home with any of them, perhaps Astrolabe or Spyglass who are both extra rambunctious and love to wrestle with her. In the end, though, it’s always up to the adopter how much they are ready to take on; adopting a kitten is making a 20-year commitment.

If you’ve already applied, don’t panic - we’re sure DAWS will have everything processed in due time!

We’ll be back real soon to post baby photos of the next class, Cahoot’s newborns. Meanwhile, please enjoy…

More Catching Up with Bumble, Crouton and More!

August 10, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Photos, Introduction

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

Crouton’s kids are all grown up now and gradutating in the next couple weeks. We have SO many more photos of them, but in the spirit of “catching up,” we’re just going to publish what is ready to go, and we’ll hope to edit and publish more — in due time!

Before we forget, a couple items of current events:

The momcat and kittens we expected to arrive last Saturday, didn’t. But there’s a very good chance we’ll be getting a new pregnant momcat this Saturday the 13th, in the early afternoon.
We don’t expect the momcat arrival to impact mailbag, or Morsel and Nugget’s adoption, which will also be Saturday the 13th.
Art Coordinator Jay has created a schedule for re-publishing our most popular T-shirt designs over the next few months! Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Crouton and kids have adopters! What we know so far:

Crouton will be adopted September 1st
Morsel and Nugget will be adopted together August 13th
Chunk and Tidbit will be adopted together date TBD
Smidgeon and Crumb will be adopted together August 23rd
All dates subject to change!

So, presenting for the first time on this blog, Crouton and her tiny breads, Chunk, Nugget, Crumb, Tidbit, Smidgeon, and Morsel!

T-Shirt Schedule!

August 10, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Merch

Greetings, Kitten Merchandicians!

Image of Kitten Seeking Merchandise — Hey Buddy, You Got any Merch?

Art Coordinator Jay has a plan for re-releasing our most popular merchandise designs from now through the end of the year! Here’s the schedule - links to the products will be updated as they become available.

Also please note, the schedule does not include several new designs we expect to be publishing during this time! You can click here to view the Kitten Academy store, but we recommend just using the individual links below.

STORE RE-RELEASE SCHEDULE

Phase 1: Kitten Academy - Legacy

These are the top 5 products produced for us through the years. A chance to buy (or re-buy!) the favourites from the past few years - Once they're gone, they're gone! These will be released every Monday throughout August, then will stay up until October 1st

August 2022

Phase 2: Old but Gold!

Some of these shirts were released all the way back in 2019! Here is another chance to pick up some of your favourite classics to add to the collection. These will be released on a bi-weekly basis every Monday and Friday. Be quick! These will be going at the end of the month - Get 'em while they're hot!

September 2022

2nd - Bad Hal
5th - BC Chai
9th - Maggie Love
12th - Catterns
16th - Bready Bunch
19th - Toof
23rd - HRH Paisley

Phase 2.5: But Wait, There's More!

We've still got more to bring from the oldies and the goldies. It's another month of bi-weekly re-releases, so keep an eye out for any favourites. As before, they'll be gone at the end of the month so be quick!

October 2022

3rd - Spooky Faculty
7th - Tomout
10th - DONT PANIC
14th - Snackaru
17th - Buttons
21st - Truffy
24th - Myth

Phase 3: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Nearly! Here are the shirts that didn't get enough attention before the store closure or the attention they deserved first time around. Don't forget to stock up on your Ugly Sweaters for the winter season - Colour not guaranteed and 100% ugly certified! [editor: I own one and you never see me wear it, it’s THAT ugly] Releases are every Friday this month, and will be available 'till the end of the year.

November 2022

4th - River
11th - Bespoke Tinypants
18th - My 4 Moods
25th - KA Ugly Sweater

New Designs!

Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Catching up with Scottie and the "Puppies"

August 04, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Introduction, Photos

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

We’re setting new records in being waaaaay behind so we’re delcaring it a “website backlog forgiveness day time” And here’s the plan: we’re just going to post what we got, no worries about trying to put it all together narratively or checking that we’ve edited a roughly equal number of photos for each kitten.

So here’s the blog post we uploaded all the way back in April, with Scottie and the Puppies, and we’ll be back with more catching up before you know it!

Here’s a couple things to know in case we don’t:

Crunchyroll Expo 2022 is this weekend and the kittens will be attending — well, virtually, anyhow. Many thanks to Crunchyroll for bringing the extra attention to the kittens we’re fostering, for the third year running! We’re told that if you are attending the Expo virtually this year, you don’t even need to register in advance, just turn up on the website and check things out!

And speaking of big events this weekend, we’re expecting the arrival of a new momcat with her six or seven kittens on Saturday evening. Keep an eye on the stream for updates!

Back soon (probably?) with more!

Here’s Pug, Beagle, Pomeranian, St. Bernard, Basset, Jack Russell, and of course, Scottie:

Arts and Cats with Syl

June 27, 2022 by Sylvie in Art

[Edit: This blog was meant to post earlier in June but the Kazoo Network kept interfering.]

Hello Kitten Academicians!

It’s Sylvie here again to talk about all things art, well maybe just a few things. So far this year we’ve had two art prompts – Floofy February and Artsy April. February’s prompt had us imagining cats writing love letters and playing in the flowers whereas April was about art and nature. There are still four more planned prompts for this year – June, August, October and December. This month we’ve been taking a mental vacation to the beach as we imagine kittens chasing seagulls, playing in the sand and even surfing during Beach Party 2022. October and December will be seasonally themed so look forward to that!

When I first created these prompts I was still learning digital art so I try to make them friendly to all skill levels as well as fun for all mediums. I quickly learned that drawing everyday is tiring so myself as well as others tend to combine days. With this in mind, the rules for participation are simple - the terms are inspiration for your creation and can be interpreted however you’d like.

To participate during the short remainder of this month you can create an art piece and post it on Twitter using the hashtag #KABeachParty2022. If you’re not a Twitter user, we also have members of the Discord server that post their creations to the arts and crafts channel.

Below you’ll find the submissions from Artsy April 2022, but if you would like to view the other creations you can find them here. Thank you so much to everyone who participated - we love to see the creativity within the community!

Does Beach Party sound familiar? We first had one in 2020!

To view all the previous art prompts click here.

"Introducing": River and the Tiny Townies

April 29, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Introduction, Photos

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

[Edit: The date on this post is February 8, but it wasn’t published until April 29.]

We’re further behind than ever before! Here we are introducing River and her kittens and they’ve already all graduated (except Yurt) — but we’ll get to that after a bit of more timely news.

KA-Con 2022

KA-Con is being held in-person this year June 17-19th. The event is entirely arranged by the volunteer KA-Con Planning Committee and we’re expecting it to be a casual good time where we get a chance to meet and interact with some of you in-person (and some virtually)! As in previous years, attendance is limited to Patreons and Discorders so that the Planning Committee is able to accurately gauge the scope and not work themselves to an early retirement!

Miss Mellie’s Kitten Academy Poems

Miss Mellie and Umbra Love have published Volume Two of the amazing Kitten Academy Poems, an illustrated two-part series of imaginative stories told in verse by the cats and kittens that have attended the Academy (part three coming In Due Time™). The link here goes to the Kindle versions, but if you dig in, you’ll find they are also available in paperback or even hardcover! The on-demand printing isn’t cheap but the quality is superb, and the poetry and artwork is well worth the price. The profits from sales go to Kitten Academy and various other animal rescues[*]. If you are interested in further supporting Miss Mellie and Umbra Love, you can commission poetry and art in the same style for your own pets at their new project, petpoetraits.com!

Scottie’s Tiny Puppies

Scottie’s class has failed their final exams and will be held back for a week or two of summer Spring School. More on that in our next blogpost (In Due Time™).

River and the Tiny Townies

With that out of the way, let’s introduce River and her Townies! They came to the Academy January 8th and the kittens were already a few weeks old. Although they started out extremely shy, it wasn’t long before they took over the Academy (and our hearts).

They’ve all graduated now, except Yurt, who is being adopted with Beagle of Scottie’s class. In order to get caught up, we’re publishing whatever photos we had ready-to-go, and perhaps we’ll be able to publish some or all of the rest In Due Time™.

Here’s the rest of the photos we have ready-to-go!

[* In the past, proceeds have been split among Kitten Academy and DAWS, the shelter that provides us cats to foster. Currently, Miss Mellie and Umbra Love are dedicating a portion to orginizations involved in rehoming of pets that have been rescued from Ukraine.]

More Art Alliterations with Syl

April 06, 2022 by Sylvie in Art

Hello Kitten Academicians!

It’s Sylvie again and I’m here to tell you about this month's art prompt, Artsy April 2022. This time around, the terms on the prompt were mainly chosen by you, the community. Thank you so much to everyone that gave us suggestions for the prompt, we look forward to getting the community more involved in the future. If you want to participate in this month’s prompt, all you have to do is create with whatever medium you enjoy and post it to Twitter using the hashtag #KAArtsyApril2022. If you’re not a Twitter user, you are also welcome to post your work in the arts-and-crafts channel in Discord. We can’t wait to see all of your creations this month. I hope you’ll join us, even if only one day inspires you. Lastly, don’t forget - have fun, don’t stress and if it stops being fun, take a break!

Below, you’ll find the submissions from the previous art month, Floofy February. Thank you so much to everyone that participated! If you would like to see all of the other fun and floofy artworks click here.

Does Artsy April sound familiar? We also did one in 2020!

To view all of the previous art prompts click here.

Art Alliterations with Syl

February 25, 2022 by Sylvie in Art

[Ed: We’re trying something new here because we’re so far behind on showing the appreciation we feel for the amazing artists in the Kitten Academy community! Feel free to comment below.]

Hello Kitten Academicians!

My name is Sylvie and I’m the “Syl” responsible for creating the Kitten Academy art prompts. I’ve been creating these art prompts since October 2019 as a way to engage the community and give you all a creative outlet. Over the past couple years, we have seen some great pieces created by the community and will be continuing to find ways to welcome newcomers and encourage participation. At the end of this blog I’ll be showing you some community submissions from the last two art prompts — Spooky Sketches 2021 and December Doodles 2021.

Typically, each prompt is themed and includes terms for every day of the associated month. This month is Floofy February and to participate you can use the hashtag #KAFloofyFebruary2022. As Mr. A said in the previous art blog, you can participate however you want using whatever medium you enjoy. While the idea comes from traditional art prompts, we consider these as creative opportunities for those of all skills, talents and interest in our community. We have seen entries using various mediums as well as nail painting, photoshop, crochet pieces and poems just to name a few. As a creative person myself, I understand how ideas come and go randomly so I don’t want anyone to feel as though they must stick to specific rules. Personally, I like to combine multiple days and I’ve noticed other participants do the same as well. There is no requirement to participate every day, and I find that combining days creates fun ideas while also helping to prevent burnout. I don’t have many rules but the ones I find the most important are — have fun, don’t stress & if it stops being fun take a break!

Speaking of taking a break, it has been a while since the last art blog was posted. As you know, Mr. A has his hands full of kittens almost all the time now and to keep these running on schedule, I’ll be creating the art submission blogs from now on. Please look forward to the rest of the community creations this month as well as our next prompt that will be scheduled for April!

To see all the amazing entries from the last two prompts check out these hashtags on Twitter — #KASpookySketches2021 and #KADecemberDoodles2021.

If you would like to know more about upcoming prompts and activities, you can find me on Twitter (@Sylhouettes) as well as the Kitten Academy discord for Patreon subscribers.

Catching Up Part One: Buttons and Bumble (And Splotch)

January 31, 2022 by Mr. Academy in Photos, Merch

Greetings, Kitten Academicians!

We are, in the words of the great Douglas Adams, “…late, but moving fast!” Today’s blog post is entirely about Buttons and Bumble, with a side of Splotch. We have the best intentions to return quickly with posts about the other new residents of the Academy… soon! Until then, catch them on the Live Stream!

In what may be a first, Buttons arrived from Georgia as a presumptive momcat, was found to be a non-pregnant kitten, had her graduation, and has gone to live with her adopter (back to Georgia, coincidentally), all before we managed to post anything about her on our blog. That doesn’t say a lot for us, but it sure says a lot for Buttons, and her adopter (and all of you)! Our favorite fact about Buttons — she was allowed to roam the Academy freely for most of the weeks she was here, and in all that time, only went downstairs once; just long enough to decide it wasn’t for her. Here’s a few photos from the photoshoots she managed to participate in.

Next, DAWS had the lovely tuxie Bumble arrive as a presumptive momcat. But she turned out to be a slightly chonky cat, not pregnant at all. She, too, has had her graduation surgery, but is still awaiting adoption applicants. Her favorite things to do are eating and sleeping, and she would make an excellent couch companion. She’s young, perhaps a year or so, and so does also require a certain amount of play and zooming — more on that in a moment. She does not start trouble with other cats, but she does let them know to keep a distance by growling. If pushed further, she’ll run away and hide. She only fights if cornered. She can get along with other cats just fine, and if they’re reasonably polite and will respect her boundaries they can even become friends over time.

…Which brings us to Splotch. You may recall that Splotch had an adopter lined up, but the adoption was delayed a short while so that we could focus on helping her get over a bit of a snort that she had had since birth. Good news: the snorting has been completely resolved thanks to the ceaseless efforts of Dr. Katz! However, due to a change in circumstances, Splotch’s adopter has had to withdraw, and so Splotch will need a new adopter.

Splotch is a strong, healthy polydactyl kitten who loves play and zooming more than anything else, napping and eating when necessary. Splotch likes to be near her people, but tends to be independent and prefers cuddling and purring when it happens on her schedule. We expect that over time, she’ll build a very strong bond with her adopter and come to enjoy affection more freely. She would make an excellent companion for someone who wants a more active and curious cat — if her mom is any indication she’ll continue to be that way well past kittenhood. She’s good with other cats, and will respectfully give them distance if they respectfully request it. She’s polite with humans and cats, takes corrections well, and seldom uses her claws or teeth without provocation. When other cats are too forward, she tends to correct them with quick smacks rather than a growl, so an adopter who already has cats should consider whether they’ll respond favorably to that. So far, everyone here — including River — gets along with her just fine.

Our recommendation would be to adopt Splotch along with another cat or kitten — one that she will get along with and that may help her find an outlet for some of her energy as well. So far, it seems like Bumble would make a fair choice for this, although it’s possible that Bumble would be overwhelmed if she were solely responsible for keeping Splotch entertained. It may well be the case that Splotch ends up best friends with one of the tiny Townies or even eventually one of Scottie’s kittens. It also seems likely that Splotch would be just fine without other cats around, if her adopter is committed to keeping her busy!

So, applications for Splotch and Bumble (together or separately) are open!

Here’s a couple “bonus” images including previews of the upcoming blogpost photoshoots that we’re behind on editing and posting:

…one more thing!

In what’s definitely a first, there’s also beautiful Buttons merch on the store — merch announced after Buttons had already come and gone, but it’s so pretty we can’t wait for ours anyhow!