Featured Daily Sketch: Flash, 2013

March 5, 2026 Bernadette

charcoal sketch of cat going up steps — “Flash”, compressed charcoal pencil, 5″ x 6.5″, 2/27/2013 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

This is pretty much what I saw of Mimi as I went up and down the stairs today, from studio to office. She never tired of racing me up the steps, and by the time I was part of the way up and looked up, she was at the top and coolly turning the corner. When she does this I call her “Flash”. She seems to like it.

I noted the details of her posture each time, as I have before. One of the times we were headed up I grabbed my sketchbook and charcoal pencil and was at the ready as she ran up, and did a quick outline before the details faded from my memory, making corrections another time, then finishing.

Mimi and I were having an adult day, letting the kids sleep in a pile while we shared time together, though the lure of a nap on her children eventually won her favor.

A great memory, and a charcoal pencil crisis!

Another great memory, tiny Mimi was quick and confident she was an important part of what I was doing, whatever it was. She spent so much time with me, awake and vigilant or actively accompanying me through my day—and I did and still do a lot of walking up and down steps all day long since I can’t fit all the things I do in one room or even on one floor. Her tiny little pit-pat paws coming up beside or even behind me, then breaking into an effortless and nearly soundless run to the top always made me smile to myself and were what encouraged me to record that in a sketch. Mimi made my day, even when she finally decided to join her children in the big pile of cats, or when she sidled off for her long nap on her box under the bed.

I sketched this in compressed charcoal. If you’ve ever used vine charcoal you’ll know it’s kind of dusty and easily rubs off. When I was sketching five black cats I just wasn’t happy with regular vine charcoal and charcoal pencils, which are harder than vine charcoal, were too fine for what I wanted to accomplish. I had compressed charcoal pencils with a lead fill three times the diameter of the piece of lead in a pencil so that I could get a good dark line or fill an area quickly and fairly thoroughly when I wanted that, and the compressed charcoal covered better, wasn’t dusty or even easily smudged, and purrfectly fit my need for a deep black in drawing all these black cats. The nice thing was that they were “paper-wrapped,” The sort of pencil where a strip of paper winds around the lead so that rather than sharpening it to remove the wood around the lead, you just peel the paper away. That’s much more economical because you lose so much of whatever is the “lead” in a drawing pencil, be it graphite, charcoal, pastel or wax, when you sharpen it, and often a delicate charcoal or pastel shatters no matter how gently you sharpen it.

I had a dozen or more of those pencils and have no idea when or where I had purchased them or if they came to me from the hand-me-downs and donations from others. I wanted to use one recently and discovered I only had one left after all those drawings and it was down to two inches of pencil. I went to look for them on Michaels’ website so I’d know where in the store to find them, but no luck, and in short I didn’t find them in any of the art supply stores near me or on the internet, anywhere in this country! I could find compressed charcoal pencils, but not that thick lead, and not paper wrapped. I definitely associated them with Mimi and the siblings, especially Giuseppe, and thought of all the sketches I’d done of them with those pencils. I had to have the paper wrapped pencils, and not any substitute!

I finally tracked them down to Jackson’s Art Supplies—in London! To my surprise there was no big surcharge for it to be shipped here—no tariffs on art supplies, I guess, but no extra shipping either—and they arrived via Royal Mail in less than a week. I have not sketched with them yet, but having them in my hand, looking at them and thinking of the lines on paper, the heavier fills in areas and how I built the image with them has definitely been an inspiration to sketch them again once in a while.

Of all the things happening in the world…but we can’t forget things that are important to us in our daily lives.

Daily Sketches 2011 to 2015

I think I accomplished what I'd set out to do three years ago today, a challenge to me and entertainment and enjoyment for you: to create a quick sketch of my cats each day as a way to practice and experiment, and present the sketch on that day with no editing, no waiting, no excuses, just to do the sketch and share it.

Read more about the reason for the daily sketches in Daily Sketches: the Idea, Most Popular, Awards.

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