Featured Daily Sketch: World Cat, 2012

Thinking a lot about Giuseppe lately…

I sketched this on September 2, 2012, and on that day that I couldn’t sit down in my studio because a certain black cat had taken over my chair, so I was doing other things I could do standing because I can’t move the cat. I remember I spun the chair and the light hit him just right and in the highlights and shadows in his fur I pictured the globe, blue and green, little bits of peach here and there, floating in the dusty cosmos of the Milky way, envisioning an ink sketch with watercolor in those colors.

And so I grabbed my watercolor pad and my favorite Pentel Hybrid Technica drawing pen and sketched his graceful cat curve and shoulders and big ears and minimal details. Then, because he often followed me when I left the room, I tiptoed so I wouldn’t wake him to get a jar of water and my watercolors and brushes and painted the interesting light falling on him from the window and from my work lights using the watercolors from my limited traveling palette, blue, green, purple, orange and yellow.

It was all over in about 15 minutes. I named the sketch “World Cat” not because Giuseppe represents the world of cats or cats of the world (though he might like to think so), but because I set it aside for the finishing glance and it really did look like an image of the earth from space, that lovely blue and green globe, that I’d seen in that first glance.

Or perhaps it worked out this way because I think the world of my cats.

Where to find “World Cat”

The original sketch is sold, but I sell framed prints just as I framed the original and other frames according to my whim, plus unframed prints and canvases. This art accommodates easily in a square format like the 8″ x 8″ wood-mounted print featured here, and the square canvases look great. I’ve also used this image on handmade items as well like maiche keepsake boxes, both round and square.

 

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.

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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.

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*Certificate of Excellence, Cat Writers' Association 2014 Communications Contest