Daily Sketch: Kelly in a Ball

Kelly has been sleeping a little more comfortably on my desk, right on top of everything. And there’s a lot there to sleep on.

But she has a totally endearing habit of rolling herself up into an ever-tighter ball of tortie spots with her legs all tangled and her tail twisted in there and her head turned sideways or upside down. Cutest of all, which you sadly can’t hear in her sketch, is how she talks to herself and to me, making little happy Kelly sounds, chirps and soft mmmrrrrrrrs, now and then a real meow, and lots of purrrrs.

And I nearly always take a reference photo even of my sketch subjects. In this case, I knew she wasn’t going to hold the pose for too long so I could work from the photo, and in some other cases I might want to use the reference photo for something more finished at another time. It never hurts to have more photos of cats around.

Colored pencil again; it’s become a convenient way to use color with shadings I can’t get in marker and I don’t have to worry about the mess of chalk or oil pastel, and now special paper for watercolor. I’ve never felt I handled colored pencil well, but after all these sketches of my cats I fell much more confident about them.

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Click here to see other daily sketches.

For a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.

Read about the reason for the daily sketches in The Artist’s Life: Daily Sketches.

And read about purchasing them and requesting them as a donation item for your shelter or rescue group in The Artist’s Life: Daily Sketches for Sale and Donation.

All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.