Featured Daily Sketch: Kelly Relaxing, 2012

June 20, 2025 Bernadette

sketch of tortoiseshell cat on stool — Kelly Relaxing, red and brown conté and charcoal © B.E. Kazmarski

The top of the stool is apparently the perfect circumference for Kelly as she relaxes there while enjoying the fan in this hot weather, one leg and a tail dangling off the edge. That is one relaxed Kelly.

My red conté crayon isn’t quite the color of a tortie or the light maple of the stool, but still gets the idea across. Cookie and Kelly were still with us when I started my daily sketches December 4, 2011. We lost Cookie on February 2, 2012, but I managed to get her tortieness into several sketches before that. We lost Kelly in August 2012, but I captured Kelly many times in those few months. All those speckles and two colors were quite a difference from sketching solid black cats! But most of all it’s that visceral memory of watching her side slowly rise up and down as I marked off her black areas and orange areas, the familiar napping pose with positions of each of her legs, and the dangling tail. And the back of her head. So nice to see Kelly relaxing.

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sketch of cat drinking water — “Kelly Has a Drink”, colored pencil, 6″ x 6″ © B.E. Kazmarski

What legs! Kelly really does have long legs, especially when she does her drinking dance, solidly planting all four paws, then prancing her hind paws and waving her tail while she drinks. There’s something so precious about Kelly drinking; I think it has to do with her timid nature, yet she totally enjoys her water so I enjoy her enjoyment. Read more and order.

Copyright

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.