An artist’s playful cat illustrations are a witty celebration of felines.
Lim Heng Swee is an artist who wants “to doodle a smile on Earth’s face,” as he puts it. He likes to create “fun, humorous, feel-good art” using bright colors and clean lines and shapes. However, it’s his conceptual cat illustrations that make us smile the most. In these, he seems to captures a bit of the boundless energy and charisma of felines.
Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the artist also goes by “ilovedoodle,” creating delightful minimalist cat illustrations. However, His work covers many subjects and has been featured on international brands from the US to Australia. His style is sometimes more doodle-like and other times like high art, drawing inspiration from classic paintings.
Cat Illustrations Where Cats are One With the Foliage
Recently, Swee’s series called “Cats and Plants” has been featured in My Modern Met. For cat lovers, we know all too well how cats are instantly drawn to houseplants. They love nothing more than to disappear into the leaves (and possibly shred them). Hiding in the plants puts cats in their element, stalking in their tiny jungle.
Here, the artist celebrates a playful relationship, merging the forms of cats with the leaves.
‘Cats and Plants’ Series
Below, a cat’s simple silhouette merges with the strap-like leaves of a familiar “snake plant.” However, here it’s called a “Sneak Plant.”
Lim Hen Swee via Instagram
In another illustration, the cats become tiny clusters of flowers, their lion-like manes becoming petals.
Lim Heng Swee via Instagram
In the picture below, two cats come together, framing a large philodendron leaf. The artist plays with the shapes of the lacy leaves, allowing the cat’s curving form to fill in the negative spaces. In a similar picture, the cat scratches solid leaves, which then resemble the actual plant.
Image via Instagram
Image via Instagram
In Cat and Plant 28: Something Fishy, Swee’s leaves become fish bones. Underneath, a black cat becomes the soil.
Image via Instagram
For a final taste of Swee’s series, here is a cactus, or is it a “catcus?”
Image via Instagram
Cats Illustrations Merge into the Land
Last year, Lim Heng Swee released the Cat Landscape series focused on cat illustrations where felines become one with their environments. Here, he plays with scale, where cats can become any size.
Certainly, cats are masters of blending in, seemingly able to take on a liquid form. So these drawings play with that concept, taking it to a whole new level.
“Recently, I started to explore minimal landscape art and found that the curves and shapes of the land have a lot of similarities with the curve and shape of the cat,” Swee states.
A playful cat looks at a ball of yarn in one piece, unweaving to outline a cloudy sky, a larger ball forming a sun.
Image via Instagram
In another, a cat-shaped lake fills the rolling hills with little sailboats becoming pointed ears.
Image via Instagram
The ‘Meowtains’ of Meow Land
In another, a cat tops a mountain resembling Japan’s Mt. Fuji, a nod to Japanese painters. Each “meowntain” has its white feline/snow toppings. Lim Heng Swee takes us to his vision of “Meow Land.”
In other cat illustrations, he shows us the mountains of “Himeowlaya.”
image via Instagram
Below, a cat becomes waves on a shore and an emerging island at once.
Image via Instagram
In No.75, a cat rests in a curving landscape – also a comfy chair. Maybe, this is how a housecat sees its favorite chair?
Image via Instagram
Below, Swee creates an animated wave, white cats rising on each crest. Its style is a nod to Katsushika Hokusai’s woodblock print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. True to the famous print series, we see Mount Fuji, the tallest peak in Japan. However, this time, of course, a cat crowns the summit.
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In other cat illustrations, Lim Hen Swee takes it to a cosmic dimension. In these illustrations, he explores “Catstronomy,” as he puts it. We love these playful cat illustrations and just had to share. See more at I Love Doodle, Instagram, Facebook, and Swee’s Etsy shop.
