for Blogtober Day 15
I have done such a brilliant job with the kids I teach on a Tuesday afternoon that for the past two sessions I have done little more than fetch them art materials, mop up spilled water and give them a 5 minute warning for the end of the session. (If you’re interested, the activity has been to make a camera out of an empty matchbox with a piece of egg box stuck on the front for the lens, then the whole thing is painted black. The box can then be filled with pictures that they have drawn or painted. 4 children aged 7-10 have been completely engrossed for 4.5 hours and counting…)
On the shelf of the communal room where we run the art club I found a book called Draw 50 Cats by Lee J. Ames, a former Disney illustrator. They are step-by-step examples, and there’s everything from kittens to lions. Here are my drawings which I did in between my water-pot-emptying and pencil-sharpening duties:
I really like them, and felt sufficiently galvanised to attempt a drawing of Sausage, who after being deeply unhelpful by following me around rather than standing still so I could photograph him (a contrary cat! who’d have thought!) finally sat down and looked handsome.
These are in fineliner and coloured pencil, with a little gouache for the eyes. The two loaf tin poses really do look like him; I’m very impressed I managed to capture his bored and condescending expression.
I then decided to try drawing him in the way I suspect he views himself:
I found this really tricky – the problem with all these step-by-step drawing guides is that the first few structural lines are sooooo critical as everything literally hangs off them, and if you’re doing a sequential process without a reference photo it’s easy to get something a bit off at the start, and then you end up with a wonky panther. And nobody wants that.
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