Don’t ask me where this came from because I couldn’t tell you. I simply followed the visual ideal I had, not even a clear idea, and kept adding colors to this until it felt right.
The boys were all tucked onto Emeraude’s bed, which you might remember is covered with a blanket with pawprints in different colors; here is a recent photo and a sketch. I like it because it’s colorful and happy and provides a nice backdrop when I look at Emeraude. She seems to like it too, since when I change it around and that blanket ends up there she steps right onto it and purrs. It has happy connotations for me and, I presume, for her. Apparently it does for the boys as well since they curl up on it whenever Emeraude chooses to sleep elsewhere.
And so they were, and I did find they way they were tucked together interesting, highlights in their fur, shapes, abstract, but it was the colors too and pictured a soft sketch in black and gray pastel with blue and earthy highlights in soft pastel, but I didn’t want to stop there this time. I also wanted a toned background instead of plain white and went with a warm-toned flecked gray, the better to enhance the lighter colors. I saw the running outlines of color to distinguish them on top of the sketch, kind of like a sketch I’d done summer 2012 using harder sticks of Nupastel. That was fun, just following intuition and grabbing one pastel after another to draw and stop and picking up yet another. But that wasn’t enough, it wasn’t done yet.
So I continued on with a few extra outlines around the outside and knew I was following in the right direction. Then I went farther and farther and made confetti and finally it was done.
So there we are. It looks as if they are in a nest. Really, they are.
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4 thoughts on “Daily Sketch: Black Cats Dreaming in Color”
This is beautiful… healers irradiating their colorful energy.
Andres, you’re probably right–in those moments after I’ve painted something I haven’t had time to think over the things that ended up there that I didn’t plan.
This is beautiful… healers irradiating their colorful energy.
Thank you, Maru, I love to see them this way.
I think it looks like you captured their aura! Little did you know………
Andres, you’re probably right–in those moments after I’ve painted something I haven’t had time to think over the things that ended up there that I didn’t plan.