sketching cats

Cats really are extremely uncooperative models - and all that chicken I feed her - you'd think she'd be more grateful. She doesn't like cat food except for the dry cat biscuits and insists on chicken.




These first 2 are of the little madame indulging in her favourite hobby - ornithology, it's accompanied by a lot of little yattering noises and twitching whiskers :>)










These are very very fast sketches of a moving model who wouldn't keep still at all. The glare on the top left of the second page of images is her telling me to stop staring at her and leave her to wash in peace - not that she'll necessarily return the compliment. It's a lousy drawing because she of course ... moved.

This is the dictatorial little madame that the sweet, if sharp fanged kitten. of a few posts back, grew up to be.

She's a tortoiseshell tabby and beautifully marked (well I thinks so :>) ) with a beautiful cream and apricot tummy, deep beige socks and dark tabby stripes on her back and rosettes on her sides. She's the original scaredy cat and very rarely goes beyond our small garden.

She has a very endearing way of snuggling into me, tucking her nose under my chin and wrapping a paw round my neck

..... and a very unendearing habit of biting the hand that feeds her in warning when she doesn't want to be bothered! (not hard I hasten to add, just a warning - she gets a warning back - a stern 'don't you dare!')

I used biro for some, charcoal pencil for others and pencil and a bit of coloured pencil in there as well, in the moleskine sketchbook.



These are some old watercolour sketches - the same problems of a moving model. I was just trying to get down a quick impression of her. This is an 11 inch square sketchbook. There is no drawing - I just had the colours roughly mixed and drew with the paint.




















Using photographs may be easier in one way - they don't move - but sketches from life catch something more, that hopefully then feeds into work from photographs later.

I often sketch the cats sleeping but even then they move and twitch and roll over.