Featured Daily Sketch: Hangin’ in the Kitchen, 2013
Giuseppe, Mr. Sunshine and Mimi hangin’ out with me in the kitchen.
Often when I draw these five black cats, and even when I don’t but just visualize, I am visualizing their silhouette as a shape, but not paying any attention to their color. That may be stating the obvious seeing cats in every shade of pastel and watercolor and colored pencil and any other medium I have, but because they are solid and because they are black, I can start with them and go on to other ideas.
But I like their darkness and while I often use a blue or purple or other dark color instead of black so the deepest areas have their own brilliance, sometimes I really want pure black. There are many other ways than using a black medium such as ink or charcoal to draw them—that’s just too easy, sometimes I want a challenge. And instead of the flat representations I often have, I wanted them to look a little more dimensional, as if their shapes lifted from the surface.
I was watching them in the kitchen as the five of them moved on and off the cabinet under the light in the middle of the room bathing themselves and each other, watching me, looking out the door and just engaging in feline meditation, seeing the deep black of their fur with just minimal highlights made by the light shining from directly above, and highlights in warm yellow tones. To catch this, I’d want the black to be about as solid as possible, and that’s easiest accomplished by starting with a black base. I decided to use a black sheet of my highly textured pastel paper.
Totally unrelated, I had been testing the points on my pastel pencils and had a sheet of brown paper with different colored lines sketched on it, and I liked how it looked. I decided I’d use this the next chance I got, and decided this was my chance.
The challenge, of course, is to NOT draw the cats, but to draw just their highlights and the background around them. I did end up outlining them, but that was because in watching them moving around I kept losing their shapes as I moved from Sunshine in the middle, Giuseppe on the left and Mimi on the right before I ran out of paper. Seems like I need a little more practice in this! I’m not sure why I used the green for the cabinet top when it wasn’t in my initial visual palette, keeping with yellows and blues because those were the most convenient pencils, but I like its brilliance.
And no matter the colors I used, they are strong shapes and have just enough dimension to them.
Mr. Sunshine is ignoring me and Mimi is washing her face, but Giuseppe is watching me sketch because the pencil is making exciting little scratching noises on the paper, kind of like a mousie.
Where to find this artwork
I sold the original of “Hangin’ in the Kitchen” but have prints on paper and canvas. Fit it on Portraits of Animals.
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All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals 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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Beautiful sketch. XO
Thank you! A fun one.