Cats, Cats, And More Cats

This blog post is about cats, cats, and more cats. First of all, I checked out two Dover Art Library books from my local library. The first one that I have been swooning over is Steinlen Cats. Boy, could he draw cats. For my drawing practice, I warmed up by copying one of his drawings. I plan to copy more of them. I'm hoping to get some ideas about how to suggest features, especially eyes and noses, and marks to show fur, shape, and values.

Second, I used my toy puma that I purchased at the Como Zoo gift shop for part of tonight's drawing practice. I focused on the two legs and tummy on one side of the puma. This might not sound like much, but it was! When I dropped plumblines and horizontal lines, there were relationships that I hadn't even thought to check until the lines showed me things like where the bend in the tummy didn't line up with the part of the paw that should have been directly below. Instead of being discouraged, it was fascinating.

Lastly, I practiced several quick sketches of my real, live house cats. Here is one of them. I really liked the start of the other sketch, but the cat moved before I even finished the outer contour.

By the way, my whole life is not about cats.  I also got the Dover Art Library Book of Edward Hopper's drawings. I'm going to try and get 2 or so of these types of books every other week or so.