Small Victory (Very Small)

Focus. Discipline. What’s that? It certainly has disappeared in my art practice. It’s early June. The weather is gorgeous and I have about 1,000 things I would like to do. My painting has been spotty, which is a problem. It’s too easy to start to make excuses and skip days when the habit wanes. It also is an open invitation to the internal critic. On the drawing front, it's a little better. I am sketching at home in little pockets of time here and here.

Meet my favorite model. While I adore my other two cats, if I find myself wanting to pick up a pen, it’s almost always because of Hammett. There has always been an ease about him in the way he moves, sleeps, and poses.

This morning he was bathing on top of a small perch, so there was a lot of movement. I tend to freeze up or go for too much details or in truth not even try to draw in this type of situation. Instead of getting all hung up on what I don't know how to do, I spent 10 minutes just trying to capture part of the cat or the feel of a quick pose without worrying about accuracy, detail, or any of that. That felt like a small victory. This is the one I liked best. Since I drew on the back of the page, ignore the lines which show through.