Featured Daily Sketch: Busy Boys, 2013

June 10, 2026 Bernadette

marker sketch of two cats — “Busy Boys”, brush markers, 8.5″ x 4.25″ © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

From 2013: Some days it’s difficult to settle on a sketch subject, and today, another quiet rainy day, they were napping most of the time and I just feel I’ve sketched enough naps. I called playtime and tossed balls and waved feathers, just watching their activities.

Watching them play was fun, but it’s what they do after play, when they settle themselves down, that’s when I get the most candid sketches as each one individually goes about transitioning from play to…not play? They look out windows, they walk around the house, they want love, they reinvestigate the room, they have a bath. In all cases, after play, they are fully aware, as if play has primed them, which it probably has as that’s the role of play for cats, tails active, ears swiveling, their steps higher, movements quicker.

I’ve been visualizing a certain style as well, and here it fit together—their energetic movements and a loose style that captures their energy and the lines of their movements. Here Mr. Sunshine, on the left in his characteristic orange (because the yellow marker isn’t dark enough) prowls across the work table sniffing all the toys, now lying still, and it’s a little confusing but we are looking at the underside of his chin as he reaches out to pick up a toy in his mouth after giving it a shove with the paw that’s lifted. Giuseppe (Verdi), in the sadly drying green marker that is his characteristic color, begins a bath, tucking his tail and pulling his leg forward to start washing his hip, and I have intentionally only colored his face, back, hip and paw because those are the active areas.

As a challenge to myself, I took no reference photos, sketched in the color first though each moved considerably before I was even quite done with that, then quickly carried the outlines around in black looking at the shapes I’d created on the paper. Just in case you really needed to know how this came about. Kind of approaching that Warhol cats style again, and I hope to remember a new set of brush markers some day so I can branch out to other colors.

And with that, I have finished off another basic sketchbook.

From 2019: Later I’ve tried to emulate the same loose style and, you know, I haven’t. Must have been the moment!

From 2026: It was definitely the moment! And I still love the minimalist/abstract quality of this quick sketch. I think I captured as much about those two boys as if I’d drawn every detail.

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