Featured Daily Sketch: Mr. Sunshine’s Blue-green Bath, 2012
From 2012: The colors don’t correspond to anything, I was just visualizing him this way while I watched him bathe. I did the simple charcoal sketch first, thinking I might just stop at that, but kept seeing the greens and blues and that yellow in this kind of rubbed-in style where the colors are blended together and you can see my swirled fingerprints. It is literally rubbed into the paper (except for what’s on my hands, my desk, Jelly Bean…) so that it loses the character of pastel and looks more like paint.
After I rubbed it in I retraced the sketch to hold the shape. For a while in my early experimentations as an artist I outlined everything, nothing looked complete until it had a black outline on it, and I still like the look of it now and then.
Then he needed to be somewhere so I added the pink and purple and tan in vague angled strokes to indicate vertical and horizontal planes. If I were to work on this yet more, which I might, I’d work orange and burnt orange into the pink, blue into the purple, and light pink into the tan, and rub them in like the blues and greens and yellows.
The drawing paper I use is fairly sturdy and though smooth has a little tooth to it, enough to hold a layer of chalk pastel though I could never add more layers and blend like Kelly in Warm Colors—that is drawn on paper with enough tooth and texture to hold lots of pastel.
From 2013: I just love their baths, I love the shapes they make, the curves and the overall simplicity of their form, and I also love Mr. Sunshine’s completely relaxed tail and the details of his angled ears, his toes and whiskers. Even though he is blue, green and yellow, whenever I post him many people recognize their own cats in his shape.
From 2014: I still like this sketch a whole lot!
From 2026: And I still like this sketch a whole lot! I like the basic sketch of him bathing, but I also like those blends. He has dimension and character, even though the colors are not the colors of cats we see every day. Seeing the time of year I sketched this I would say the pink and purple were influenced by the lilac and the lunaria blooming outside the big north window where he’s bathing. The tan would be the cabinet that was in front of the window then. For all its odd colors it’s very much tied to time and space here. And I never really did another sketch like this, but I used that blending technique numerous times after that.
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.
Click here to see other daily sketches.
For a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit Portraits of Animals in the “Daily Sketches” section.
A collection of 34 images of feline artwork
The award-winning* Feline Style Sampler
Now in its third printing since 2013! Daily sketches, illustrations, commissioned portraits all in a small coil-bound gift book. Click here or on the image to read more or find this book on Portraits of Animals.~~~
*Certificate of Excellence, Cat Writers' Association 2014 Communications Contest
Originals and Prints inspired by rescued cats from Portraits of Animals!
This sketch is still available! I think he might be a nice votive lamp too. Please let me know if you’re interested.
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.
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Weekly schedule of features:
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It’s a unique way to view a cat.
I think so too, especially when I never managed to work those colors together like that in another sketch.