Traditional Art
Illustration
Painting
Isabel Lauren Loewe
'Screen Time', 2025
Kelly Pringle has been drawing for most of her life, and for most of that time, cats weren't part of the picture.The 29-year-old illustrator based in Florida came up through 2D animation, working primarily on a computer. When she eventually stepped away from the computer and picked up traditional paint, she carried the instincts she learned in her digital practice. What she found, in a tradition of vintage Japanese cat illustration she'd been quietly admiring, gave her a formal problem worth solving.
The paintings she makes today have a specific internal architecture that rewards attention. A simplified, designed cat sits against a background rendered with full painterly commitment, in colors pulled from a single reference photograph regardless of how many other sources the composition draws from. The color discipline is something she talks about with real conviction. It's also, she'll tell you, where a lot of paintings fall apart. Hers don't. The cats appear in scenes that feel genuinely inhabited, in perspectives that are more spatially ambitious than the cozy subject matter would suggest, all held together with a tonal restraint that takes real skill to maintain.
What she's built around the cats extends well beyond the paintings themselves. She runs a Patreon, a postcard and sticker club, sells prints, and has merchandise sitting in shops in Florida and Seattle. The audience that found her work found it fast, and she has thoughts on why that is and how much of it was actually in her control. She also has a stated goal for where all of this is heading, towards the Kelly Pringle Cat Empire.
How long have you been painting seriously, and what did the early work look like?
I painted on and off in college. I think I made the switch to fully traditional work in 2022ish while I was taking a break from pursuing an art career in general. Before that, I was in college for 2D animation, so most work mainly revolved around the computer. Early work was just studies, studies, studies. There’s honestly nothing more relaxing to me than painting a good reference photo!
When did you paint your first cat?
I always love challenging myself and trying new things with my art, so I think I remember seeing a lot of vintage Japanese illustrations of cats, and really appreciating how they simplify the figure and face, while still keeping that cat factor. I thought to myself that I wanted to try to find a way to simplify the cat in my way, so I took a stab at it! There were a lot of iterations of the cat I tried before I was happy with the style that I have today.
Is your work secretly a scheme to take over the world?
Yeah. Kelly Pringle Cat Empire.
'Colossal Cat', 2025
How did you decide to pick the niche of "semi-realistic cat paintings?"
I’ve always loved how a simple designed character looks against a lush, realistic background, think Toro Inoue ads, Cat Soup, or even Over the Garden Wall. I just really love beautifully designed simplified characters, and gorgeous layout paintings.
There's a specific look to your cats, those dark eyes, that particular expression sitting somewhere between suspicious and unbothered. How did that visual language develop?
I think what’s great about cats is that they can be found almost anywhere. I love seals, but a painting of a seal on the sidewalk or chilling on a windowsill gives a completely different aura than a cat in those situations. Cats are inconspicuous, and are always a welcome sight.
Your work has a really specific tonal quality, muted backgrounds, rich but restrained color. How do you think about the color and atmosphere of a piece?
Atmosphere and colors are the lifeblood of my paintings in my opinion. That is probably the number one thing I prioritize when painting, and I think it’s where a lot of pieces can fall apart. The key is working from a single reference when it comes to color. Often I’ll come up with the composition on my own, maybe use a few different reference photos for a cat's pelt, or a design on a box, but my overall color scheme will typically come from one photo. It’s a really nice symbiotic relationship I’m able to develop between all these different references, making a completely original piece. I don’t think I could pull the colors from nowhere, maybe one day I will be able to haha.
Some of your compositions have surprisingly complex perspective work for subjects that read as cozy and approachable. The rock climbing piece, for example, has a lot going on spatially. How do you approach perspective and spatial construction when you're planning a piece like that?
Because I’ve been drawing for so long, I’m really just able to vibe it! For that piece I think I looked up pictures of cats dangling to see where their limbs and tail go, does their body convex or concave, but the perspective I was able to just guess. Working with perspective is such a fun way to get people’s attention, and I think my experience from working in animation really helped me hone that skill.
How do you think about composition generally? Do you sketch it out or work intuitively?
I have to sketch it out. I don't know how people can just draw with no idea where it’s going, I have to have some sort of overall vision before I can put pencil to paper.
What medium are you primarily working in, and has that changed over time?
For a while I was working strictly with traditional gouache on hot press paper, but then last year I decided to try acryla-gouache on a wood panel, and have looooved that. It just gives a heavy, thicker, vibrant texture and color. Also, wood is a lot less fragile and dainty than paper.
How long does a typical piece take you from start to finish?
If I’m working on a piece for my Patreon, which is typically done with traditional gouache in my sketchbook, it’ll take up to 4 hours since it’s not very big. My bigger pieces on wood however usually take around 10ish hours.
How do you know when a piece is done?
I usually have a pretty specific end result in mind, so usually once I’ve reached that and everything has the amount of shading and highlights I want on it, I’ll put down the brush.
"I've always loved how a simple designed character looks against a lush, realistic background."
'Cats on a Plane', 2025
Do the cats in your paintings have names or personalities, or are they more like recurring visual characters?
They don’t actually have names. I really use the cats more as props than characters. My husband is the one that loves to name them and give them personalities. When I’m deciding what I want the cats to look like in a painting, the only thing that I’m considering is what cat texture or pelt would look best against the background and environment. If they’re recurring it's usually because I just like how those particular types of cats look.
There's something almost mischievous about your work, like the cats are up to something and you're in on it. Is that a conscious tone you're cultivating, or does it just come out because you’re painting cats?
That’s definitely all natural cat aura, they just have a mischievous look without even trying! They have such amazing eyes, what a fun thing to emphasize!
Considering 100% of your work is feline-centric, what is your favorite breed of dogs?
Border Collies!
How did you develop your following, and how much of that was intentional strategy versus things that caught on unexpectedly?
When it comes to following, I do believe a lot of it has to do with skill. You have to be good (usually, that statement is pretty subjective and there are probably exceptions). However when it comes to virality, that is definitely mostly dumb luck. Who knows what makes a large group of people all share the same image or post? Maybe it’s skill, maybe it’s luck, or maybe a secret third thing.
What are the most important lessons that you've learned that got you to your current level of artistic success?
Keep it interesting and fun for yourself! If you get bored or ingenuine, people can tell.
You run a postcard and sticker club alongside selling prints. How do you think about building a sustainable practice around your work?
If you mean environmentally sustainable, I’m always conscious of using packaging that can be recycled or is biodegradable. If you mean financially stable, I think when it comes to making pieces for Patreon, that’s where I really allow myself to experiment and make something really self indulgent, something that is very specific to me. I think my audience enjoys sticking around to seeing what that might be, and often, they have the same interests that I do!
"Atmosphere and colors are the lifeblood of my paintings. That is probably the number one thing I prioritize when painting.”
Do you ever aim to have a pop up shop or physical merchandise in stores?
I would love that! I do have some stuff selling in a couple shops, mainly Desert Island Press in Melbourne, FL and Happy Hues in Seattle, WA. We’re currently moving some inventory around, but after everything’s settled I very much want to start branching out to more shops.
How do you decide what becomes a print versus what stays a one-off piece?
When I go into a piece, I’ll know if I’m making it with the intention of it becoming a print or a Patreon exclusive piece. However, if a Patreon print becomes popular enough, I have considered making them official parts of my print line up.
You've done collaborations and appeared at events like Purrfect Day Cafe. How do you approach partnerships and deciding what fits your brand?
It usually revolves around how busy my schedule is at that time and personal interest!
Your captions are as much a part of the work as the paintings. How much thought goes into how you present a piece online?
A lot of the clever ones are because of my husband, Quincy. I’m not really a wordsmith, so a lot of the captions I write are “They are doing ___. Meow!” which I stole from him anyway haha. If you see anything clever or funny with my work it usually has Quincy behind it, who is pretty much the secret other half to this whole establishment.
Your audience responds fast and in volume. Does that feedback loop affect what you decide to make next?
I've noticed some trends in my work that tend to excite people and so sometimes I think for example: “They really liked when I did this exaggerated perspective or this lighting gimmick, maybe I’ll try painting that in a different context”. Sometimes it generates excitement, but sometimes it doesn’t! I try not to let it affect what I feel like making too much, since general audiences can be so unpredictable.
What's a piece that didn't land the way you expected, in either direction?
I think I was really hoping my piece “Hide and Seek” would do better. It has so much detail and I loooove the color combos, but you can’t win them all! I have a patreon print I did a year ago of black line art of cats against a colorful checkerboard background that people really really like. I love the concept of it, but the line art of the cats is really weak in my opinion, so it’s funny that it’s some peoples’ favorite!
What are your biggest influences, visual or otherwise?
A big one right now is ads from the 90s and 2000s, Pottering Cat merch, Tetsuo Takahara, and old digital camera pictures.
Are there painters working in a completely different subject matter whose work you look at a lot?
I’m a huge fan of Grace Vargason! Her work is so incredible.
Is there something you want to paint that you haven't figured out how to do yet?
I would love to do something relating to the towns by the beach near where I live, but I need to get the right reference photo first.
What does a good day in the studio actually look like for you?
Usually a whole bunch of admin work, maneuvering logistics, a big chunk of the day dedicated to painting with a show or movie I’ve watched a billion times playing on a separate screen.
What are you working on right now?
I am working on some logistics for incoming merch, barcoding my existing merch, and planning some paintings I want to get out into the public in the next couple months.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
If I could plan it, I would love to be balancing a family and my job!
Last question, very serious, Is your last name really Pringle? And if so, do you have a favorite flavor?
Yes. My favorite is the pizza flavor.
'Surprise Party', 2026
Kelly Pringle can tell you exactly where a painting falls apart, and the specificity of that answer says something about how long she's been paying attention. She came up through animation, took a break from art entirely, came back to traditional paint, and spent a long stretch working through a formal problem she'd found in vintage Japanese illustration before she was satisfied with where it landed. The color she builds from a single reference photograph every time, not as a constraint but as a conclusion she reached on her own after figuring out what holds a composition together and what doesn't. Every cat is chosen for the texture of its coat against a specific environment, which means the cats are working for the painting rather than the other way around, a distinction that matters to her even if it doesn't matter to the cats. Her husband Quincy names them, writes the clever captions, and by her own account is pretty much the secret other half of the whole establishment. What she has built is the result of someone who knew early on that art would be part of her career and spent the years between then and now making that true in increasingly specific terms. The style is hers, the color logic is hers, the formal problem she set out to solve is one she identified herself and worked through on her own timeline. The Kelly Pringle Cat Empire, she says, is on schedule.
