Featured Artwork: Pawse
Moses sleeps happily on the bed. This quick pencil sketch is actually an early “daily sketch” from a decade ago when I first practiced my daily sketches.
I called Moses my “velveteen kitty”, her plushy gray fur thick and lustrous with that sparkling sheen known well to those who live with gray cats, and I knew no hard lines could describe her. I used the side of my pencil to capture that softness with just enough definition to show a few stripes and the familiar outlines tabby cats have around eyes, nose, ears and toes. Around her is just a sketchy suggestion of a pillow, and then I stopped.
Moses was a former feral cat, and was hobbled by hind legs that never fully developed. Getting up on the bed was a big deal for her, both in difficulty and habit. But the comfort of the bed was worth all the risks and difficulty to her. I loved to find her there, and would tiptoe in to look at her, sometimes photograph her, and a few times sketch her, as in “Sunday Morning”. As I always say about my sketches, they are a more immediate and even tactile memory for how deeply I study the details of my subject. Though it was more than ten years ago I still have a memory of holding my pencil on its side and sketching the soft shadows of her face and those soft paws, and the tangle of paws along with the pun on the word was what gave this sketch its name.
Where to find this artwork
I framed this original and donated it to a shelter art auction, but I also had it printed as a notecard, notepaper and memo pad in the “Feline Sketches” set. “Pawse” is a favorite as both a general purpose note card and as a sympathy card as some people have chosen this card to use for an animal sympathy card.
My ever-inspiring family of felines causes me to carry both my camera and a sketch pad around the house. Quick, simple pencil sketches catch them hanging around the house and are my favorite warm-up to creating larger pieces of artwork. While I could live three lifetimes and never be finished with the images I can create from my group, friends also give me photos that are too good to pass up. Pencil can be challenging to reproduce, and I’m happy to introduce a new series in addition to my pen and ink and my full-color fine art note cards series. You can find them in Portraits of Animals Marketplace.
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My daily sketches from this era were less “daily” than now, but were still quite frequent. I carried a sketchbook with me outdoors and kept a sketchbook and pencil at the desk, and it is this second sketchbook that became my series, “From the Lost Sketchbook” , where I’d found a sketchbook that I’d kept at my desk beginning in 2002 and used periodically until about 2005. This was a general purpose sketchbook and I used it for many things in addition to extemporaneous sketches such as illustrations and ideas, and it included sketches of my cats and a few other subjects. I was so happy to see it again when I found it in 2010 that I scanned all the sketches that were pertinent to The Creative Cat and posted them.
See more articles and images of Moses.
Featured Artwork
If you’d like to read more about artwork as I develop it, about my current portraits and at assignments and even historic portraits and paintings, each week I feature a piece of artwork on Wednesday and a new product on Thursday. Choose the category for featured artwork.
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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 using one in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of this image or a product including this image, check my Etsy shop or Fine Art America profile to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.
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