Kitty Catty

My Cat

Best drawing of Catty so far, done with pencil…the usual annotation, “and then she moved…”

Next drawing was black ball point pen

more of my cat

My Favorite Shoes

 

pencil drawing

This pencil drawing took about 3 nights from start to finish, back at the start of October before we had to move house. I plan on coloring it in photoshop like I have done before with another pencil drawing. This is the first drawing I have been happy with during my drawing course I have been doing from “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” I need to start doing the lessons out of that book again now that our move is complete.

 

Rueful Confessions

From when I was a kid I just wanted to learn to draw, so I could draw the stuff that was in my head.  Now here I am many many years later, still wanting to learn to draw but at the same time…paralyzed by the total lack of motivation caused by – get this – there’s NOTHING in my head!  That is there’s nothing I want to draw, at least I think there isn’t…that’s confusing isn’t it?

I’m not sure exactly how it happened but somewhere along the way I got lost, and I can’t find my way now, I can only emulate other people’s way and in so doing I have sort of hoped to find my way back to me…but quite honestly that’s not working.  I am going to be trying a new game in which I do stuff without worrying about what other people think, and without choking back my own creativity with my own vicious self-criticism.  If you are lost by now it just means you have never gone through this, be happy, you know who you are and you like yourself.  It is apparent to me now that I neither know who I am nor like myself too much, sorry if that sounds like whining, but it happens to be true.  Anyway, I will be posting random crap on here and trying to figure some stuff out, if you like it please comment, if you don’t then please find something better to look at and leave me alone.

So yeah, I’m still learning how to draw….actually, by most people’s standards, I can already draw, but my standards are much higher, so I think I suck.  The fact is that I went to art college in high hopes that I would be taught drawing and was bitterly disappointed to discover that the tutors believed that teaching drawing was not necessary, and in fact that since we had managed to get into art school we must already know how.  Bah!  Fools.

There is such a thing as natural talent, I have a bit of it and that got me into art school.  However, talent must be nurtured if it is to turn into useable skill.

I have a decent job in the field of art, but I have never really considered myself an artist because I am horribly inconsistent and as a result I am deeply disappointed in myself.  As the years have passed I have tried over and over to learn to draw, but something always gets in the way of progress.  In truth it is normally my own fault, I get discouraged and give up.  Let’s hope I do better from now on!

Good luck to me!

Anime Art

This is the final painting!  Phew, that took SO long!  I may still add a background.
The idea is pretty simple…I love my cat and she loves me, she is lovely etc.. all you need is love, love is all you need!  All join in!

The idea was inspired by a drawing I made from a stock photo posted on deviantart, I have been unable to contact the photographer/model and so I don’t know if it’s ok to post it here…  So I will link to it instead: click here kitty kitty!I want to make a record of the progression of this image because each stage has been distinctly different. 

This is the first concept sketch for this project.
The pose is different from the stock photo used for the original drawing,  The change was to make it more lovey and cute with the kitty snuggling back all happy and stuff

This is the worked up sketchbook drawing I scanned in to Photoshop to begin the lineart.
It’s totally different again, with a fluffy flipped-up hairdo and manga/anime eyes.  I decided I wanted it really cute!  I love the sweater she’s wearing with all those soft folds and drapes.  I made the cat more long haired like my cat too.  Except my cat is like 4 times that size!

So here I begin the tracing over the drawing to establish the lineart, then I decided I wasn’t too sure about those big vacant eyes….

So I tweaked the eyes some to try to get more expression in them
But then I decided I hated the hair after all, couldn’t get that flip to work!

Oops!  Big jump to the finished Lineart here!  I didn’t save enough stages, hrumph..
Well, the whole face was gradually reworked with smaller nose and mouth, way different hair style, plus I fixed the hands which were not drawn too well at first.  Not sure how great they are now either..oh well!  The hairdo has really taken years off her, she looks about 8 years old now instead of 18 like she did in the first drawings!

Yeah so here’s the first flat color version ready for shading and highlighting and many more changes!
Haven’t got a clue how it will turn out yet, but I know there will be a lot of PINK!

And here it is with the shading begun….

And next we have it half painted, It’s getting there, the painting is going better now and I’m starting to get the hang of the smudge tool too.  It sure is taking me a long time to do this picture!
I have re-drawn the arm supporting the cat from the original line art as it looked deformed when I started trying to paint it!   >

Um, artistic license confessions…my cat is big and orange not small and white/lilac-grey…she does have that tooth that pokes out though, so cute!  And I am not a little girl with pink hair and bunches!  I love pink..such a happy girly color.