Rebecca Salinas Art

August Noodle Mail! 💌

Added 2025-08-14 00:09:58 +0000 UTC

Hi everyone! :3 August Noodle Mail is going to be:

My Cats Riding the Bus to School 5x7" postcard
Haku Meow 4x4" magnet (patreon exclusive)

The story behind these two paintings:

Haku Meow now completes the magnet set of all four of my cats meowing with a blue background. I tried out a star shaped eye highlight in this one for the first time.

In My Cats Riding the Bus to School, I wanted to reflect the personalities of each of my cats and how I thought they'd react to riding the bus to their first day of school. Noodle would of course be sitting up in the seat spacing out, Atlas would be in his defensive crouch trying make himself seem smaller, Squid would be climbing the seats and Haku would be panicking under the seat.

Then, I thought to add them wearing little backpacks, and wondered what characters might be on them. I chose Pomni from The Amazing Digital Circus for Noodle's backpack (and even made a separate PomNoodle design that is printed on the backside of the postcard). I chose a design used by the band Radiohead for Atlas' backpack, I think he'd be a big fan (like mama). For Haku's backpack, I wanted it to seem like he forget to zip it up and all his pencils came flying out in his panic.

Near the end of the painting, I added some smaller details like the smudged graffiti of "squid wuz here" on the interior of the bus, the stickers plastered on the walls, the ripped up seat cushions and the building in the background that says ねこ(the word for cat in Japanese).

I also tried painting a different style for the fur of the cats, I really like the fur spikes I've seen other artists use (example below by babezord) and this was my first time attempting to paint it!

Atlas doesn't have much floof, but making the fur on top of his head spiked up made him seem even more like an angsty metalhead kid.

What do you guys think? How would your cats react to a first day of "school"? :o

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚

The Sillies Update! :

I got section 6 of 9 scanned for the mini prints going out for September Noodle Mail. I am a few cats ahead of posting online, it's been great spacing it out so I consistently upload a video at least once a week! I'm now sketching out the next section (top middle). I'm so excited to see how it fills out!

I made a mockup in photoshop of the rest of the cats I plan to add to the painting. The end is within reach! 🤩 Thank you for following along the journey <3

Personal Update:

This first week of August, I took a trip to see my family in Texas and drove my two young nieces down to Florida with my mom to spend time with them before school started. It was their first time visiting and they are both huge fans of Noodle and art.

My oldest niece is my mini me, she's always drawing, playing video games, and loves cats. My younger niece saw me packing orders and immediately started putting together envelopes just like I was. She also asked if she could paint something, so I set them both up and we painted for a couple hours. It was so nice to be able to spend time together!

I made a sketch of my 9 year old niece drawing in a sketchbook: