My First Cat - Drawing Practice

Today I've managed to finish my very first cat drawing. I did a sketch on the 2nd of March, The Surprised Cat - Drawing Practice March 02, 2019 but that was only a simple sketch.

I started working on it a week ago but had a busy week, had no time to draw. This is the most complex drawing I've ever done, as I said in my post post here -> The Big Cat - Drawing Practice, the artist in the video says it took him three hours to do the drawing, which means I automatically need more as I'm not an artist and have zero experience or talent.

Materials used:

• A4 drawing paper, 90 g/m2
• pencils HB, B2, B3, B6
• normal black pencil,
• Faber Castell dust free eraser.

As I've said before, I don't like cats, I don't have a cat and haven't been around a cat to have a chance to observe it. This way my guidance was the YouTube video posted at the end of this blog.

Using a ruler is not an option for me because I think an artist needs to do freehand drawing and not use a ruler but in this case I had to make an exception in order to obtain some kind of symmetry and even with a ruler, the cat's face is far from being symmetrical. I'm not going to point out where the problems are and don't really bother me as this is a learning curve, a practice and making mistakes is normal.

Auguste Rodin, one of my favorite sculpture was able to draw freehand at the age of 5, with a charcoal on a stolen piece of paper in which his mother brought home the meat from the market and I bet he did an excellent job. Then he was caught by his father, beaten and forbidden to draw. He was a smart and talented kid, he always found a way to create something new, no matter how hard it was.

I'm not Auguste Rodin, I had drawing paper at the age of 5, had a collection of pencils, I was allowed to draw but having no talent at all, here I am, struggling with my first cat :D

The hardest part of the drawing was the fur. You can draw it but you need to do it carefully in order to look real. No wonder I've failed that part. The problem started when the artist didn't say what kind pencils he's going to use, thus I had to improvise and use my limited experience to find the suitable pencils.

Then it came the part where I had to draw or erase the whiskers. Yes, you're right, the whiskers are white and are made with an eraser. The artist used a brand new pencil with a brand new eraser on it. I don't have one, who would have thought I need one? So what do you do in this case? You improvise of course, but how? Lucky me, i had my Faber Castell dust free eraser of which one end was still new. Lucky me, right? So I did the whiskers somehow.

The next surprise was when the artist started to use a white gouache to create the reflections in the cat's eyes and to highlight the whiskers. Go ahead and ask me if I have white gouache. No, of course I don't :D So I had to improvise again, make the spaces between the whiskers darker in order to highlight the white whiskers.

I'm lucky because I don't have high aspirations or expectations, I know what I'm capable of and that's why I'm having a lot of fun drawing. It is what it is. It looks like a cat and that's enough for me. Nobody is perfect, not even my cat :D

This drawing is dedicated to my dear friend @roxy-cat, who loves cats and I've promised her a cat drawing. Now I have to draw her a big, hairy musician :D