Daily Sketch: Sunning
Had to make the most of the sun this morning and caught Mimi quietly absorbing it on the bathroom windowsill.
This started out being a much simpler sketch, but she moved enough while I worked that I ended up with too many confusing sketchy little lines. I like those sketchy lines and you can still see a few around her edges, but if even I can’t make sense of them then probably no one else will either. I had intended to use conté, but just a sketchy sort of coverage maybe using one or two tones because I wanted to capture the dense shadows as well as the mahogany highlights in her fur. Instead I filled her in more completely, then drew on top with other colors using all the conté tones from black to brown to terra cotta to white.
It’s another of those I didn’t like at first and had to walk away and let it sit before I could see it correctly. When they move and I have to make so many changes, the sketch not only doesn’t look as I had visualized, an important step for a quick sketch so I know what my goal is, but it’s often not accurate to the cat, and this is Mimi’s body but not quite her face. Still, it’s acceptable as a sketch and I really like the way the unintended technique turned out.
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It’s called serendipity. Another lovely sketch 🙂
Carolyn, that was the biggest lesson in developing as an artist and one I needed to re-learn in this time of daily sketches–just letting it happen and become what it was meant to be, risking (gasp!) failure. Or success and a new technique, as above.
I know absolutely nothing about art but I love the colors on this one and the purpley one you did a couple of days ago. I would never have considered these color schemes but they work so well. I must be fun to be so artistic.
Andrea, the world is a beautiful place, though I can be relatively assured that I am not seeing the same world others are, at least judging by what I put on paper.