Tag: cats

Kitties a la Gouache

Tuesday is painting class day, generally oil or acrylic, but for the time being I am working with artists’ gouache, a water-based medium. It can be reworked, and thus, perfect for practice, quick drying, ease of use, and so on. Also, I can travel light. I don’t need to lift things up and down – I have a heavy cart on wheels for my oil paints – and that is another reason I am currently using gouache. I pulled a muscle in my back and don’t want to push it – the flood did that, so let’s be lazy. Like a cat.

You can see I used the basic elements of proportion and design from Willshire’s book I mentioned in my previous post. Reference photos for ginger cats were used for fur patterns. The ears are a bit wonky and the muzzle is not the best, but this is also my first foray into cat painting in gouache!

After this, I did a silhouette of a cat. While I remembered the overall proportions of a cat, I referred to general sizes and proportions for this view of a cat. I rather like it. Again, gouache.

This painting is less fiddly than the first one, and it was fun to just be expressive about the critter. I like it pretty well.

And now we come to Mr. Grumpy Britches! This is a work in progress and I hope to do more on it later today and post the final painting when it is done. This is a very fluffy, furry cat. Cats just crack me up!

Artists gouache, tan toned multi-media paper.

Kitty Underpinnings

The inky black cats have evolved. I decided I needed to invest in a bit of education about the build of cats and their proportions. I found some good resources to learn from, such as ones on YouTube, but since video does not play well outdoors in the sun, I opted for a book. I downloaded one for Kindle called Drawing Cats: A Step-by-Step Guide for Artists by Aimee Willshire. It had what I needed – a basic skeleton and a bit of a formula in proportions to make a drawing that can pass as a cat if I am lucky. As with portraits or people, or anything, there are essential dimensions upon which you can place individual features. I found it helpful and simple, which is really what I wanted.

So, sitting in the sun, I looked at the Kindle book and used pencil and ballpoint pen. Here are the results.

There is more in Willshire’s book, such as facial proportions, as well as specific exercises and suggestions. For basics, I am pleased enough to continue with more kitties, time permitting.

Inky Black Cats

One thing about having to clean up and discard damaged items from the flood is that I found a lot of things I had lost, buried in the debris. I also cleaned out the garage for 4 hours the other day, reorganizing my loads of loads. My muscles are sore and my mind is blank. There are still some things in the living room, but as the bins are full, I am forced to take a break. That’s good.

One thing I found was some sumi-e ink and thin paper for practicing traditional painting strokes. I still had a bit of a knack for ink painting – one of the founding subjects of this blog, too – but don’t have quite all I need. Nonetheless, I decided to try my hand with my ink stick, suzuri, brushes, and rice paper.

Nothing spectacular. I managed to remember a few things. I also realized I had to find a few other things, like a felt mat and some paper weights to hold my paper steady. Easily done.

From there, I drew a cat in purple ink, thinking about painting cats could be fun.

And easy.

And I found out they are not easy!

So, I tried to follow a few “how-to” videos on YouTube, I got frustrated and had an epiphany: I much rather paint in my own way, not following traditional formulaic representations. And this is not to put these traditional ways down – they are amazing in their own right – but I find it very frustrating to paint like someone else. Learn from someone, from tradition, but ultimately go on my own path.

So, I painted some cats. I copied some, I looked at photos of cats, and that is when I realized I need to learn more about controlling my brush and the shades of grey and black and manage the moisture on the paper. So, inky black cats, some of which may give you nightmares, but working on their shapes and using my brush has opened my mind to a lot of potentials. That is the exciting part!

The Black Cat Rebellion is here.