About Me, Catherine Hébert
Bonjour, and welcome to The Ugly Cat Studio!
I'm Catherine Hébert, an artist based in Montréal. By day I work as a visual effects artist, but by night but by night I paint the animals and nature scenes you see here!
My background is in fine arts, and I have degrees in both traditional animation (the 2D kind...you know, like Disney used to do?) and in 3D animation.
I've built a career of almost two decades in the visual effects industry, specializing in concept art, textures and matte painting. Eventually I worked my way up to Visual Effects Supervisor. You might have even seen some of the films and tv series I worked on!
But in all that time, I never lost my passion for illustration. So here I am, sharing my love of art with the world.
About the Ugly Cat Studio
The Ugly Cat Studio is home to the art I produce for myself, outside my day job.
We work with art printing studios to produce museum grade fine art prints. You’ll find prints in a variety of sizes, with optional framing available in the US and Canada. We also offer greeting cards for everyday notes or seasonal messages, printed on high quality card stock with recycled envelopes.
Browse all the prints or check our size guide if you need help deciding!
"Draw With Me" each week
Every Thursday at 7pm ET, I livestream my painting process on Twitch, Instagram Live, and YouTube. It's pretty relaxed. I paint, chat with whoever shows up, and sometimes Woodhouse wanders into frame to supervise. Replays stay up on YouTube if you can't make it in person!
About Woodhouse!
This is Woodhouse, our delightful grey tuxedo cat and the unofficial mascot of the studio. He's one of my favourite painting subjects because he never sits still long enough for me to get bored.
You'll spot him in several of my paintings, on our Instagram, and occasionally meowing loudly during our live streams.
The Ugly Cat Studio Story
The Studio is named for my childhood cat Russell, who for the record, was not ugly at all!
When I was 17 or 18, I made a quick doodle of Russell while he was sleeping on the couch. My mom kept it on a pin board in the kitchen, and for years I recalled the drawing fondly.
Far too many years and approximately one pandemic later, when I decided to finally take the leap and start selling my own illustrations to the world, my motherroduced the 'ugly cat' drawing I had made so long before. She'd kept it for all that time, and even gotten it framed!
And now Russell serves as the inspiration, mascot, and logo of the Ugly Cat Studio.
All the artwork at the Ugly Cat is original, illustrated by me. No AI generated content and no mass market cookie cutter designs here! Every single illustration is a painstaking labour of love, directly from the pen of the artist.