Catpaw – diary of an angry cat

When I started drawing again, I sketched a variety of topics before I found a peculiar joy in drawing birds. Back in June I came across an old photo of a cat I owned many years ago. He loved sitting watching the birds and squirrels and one day I was lucky enough to capture him, sitting in his favourite spot, with my camera. I spent quite a bit of time working with the photo. I did 2 drafts before working on this one.

I couldn’t seem to get the cat’s proportions correct. His eyes were far too large for his body and I couldn’t figure out how to fix it so I abandoned the sketch.

From catpaw’s Art work – animals

I think I know where I went wrong. The overall size of the cat was correct but his eyes are way off. If I had made the eyes just a little bit smaller and then angled them down at the end a hair the cat would have had a more balanced and less demented look. I think the nose was a bit too large as well, but once the eyes were fixed then I think the nose would have been easy to change.

I may go back to him one day. In the meantime I am enjoying drawing birds so much I’ve been taking out ornithology books from the library. I’m studying wing structure in the hopes it helps my drawings but my preliminary sketches are pretty bad. I tried to find some books that show how to sketch bird wings but the one’s I found were pretty simplistic and not much help. So I’m muddling through using good old trial and error. Here is one of my favourite drawings:

From Catpaw’s Art work – birds

He’s a stern looking bluebird, isn’t he? I was quite successful in drawing part of his wing. Wings aren’t too hard when they are folded against the body. Once they are spread out they are a real bugger to draw.

I’ve been gearing up to show you my “buildings with hot butter toppings”. Like I said, I have a serious problem with perspective and occasionally the drawings go seriously and humorously wrong. I drew a lovely picture of Kingston City Hall, but the dome just wouldn’t stay put – looks like it’s sitting on hot butter and sliding off:

From Catpaw’s Art work – scenery and buildings

This simple charcoal sketch gives me the giggles every time I look at the top of the dome. The perspective of the building itself is good. Quite good in fact. The dome has a slightly melting look and the top appears to be slipping down the right side. I did 3 sketches of the dome in an attempt to figure out what went wrong. They all ended up with the “hot butter” effect. Maybe I’ll stick with birds for awhile.

I have a terrible time with perspective. It often takes a couple of tries to get a particular aspect correct. A good example is the sketch of my little House Finch. The first one was coming along fine, until I hit his beak. Take a look:

From Catpaw’s Art work – birds

Beaks are a pain at the best of times. My first attempt gave Mr. Finch a bizarre grin. The head and eye was quite good but I just couldn’t seem to get the beak right. Not sure if the finch was grinning maniacally or was constipated either way he ended up looking deeply disturbed. I tried to erase the beak and begin again, but it kept coming out the same. So I started all over. The second finch looks pretty good. The beak came out just about right. Not only is the smug look gone, his forehead isn’t so large. If you look carefully, you’ll note the beak is higher in relation to the eye. The previous attempt gave the finch a cartoony look.

All my birds seem so serious though. I’m going to have to work on smoothing out around the eye a bit more. That might give them a slightly less serious look.

The feathering is coming along. I’m experimenting with a variety of strokes and over strokes with a variety of leads so the feathers aren’t so uniform and less scruff. Some of my early birds have a rough, unkempt look. Have to say I’m pleased with Mr. Finch.

I am so excited about this news! I LOVE puffins. Since grade 3, when I made my first plasticine puffin I’ve been in love with them. You can keep your penguins, puffins are seriously cool birds – they swim AND fly so take that penguins. Plus the name is just plain fun to say – puffins, puffin, puffins….

So what has made this little cat so happy? Well… I was just looking at the flyer for Loblaws (grocery chain here in Canada) and they have a cereal I’ve never heard of on sale – PUFFINS!! Can you believe it? PUFFINS CEREAL…not only that, they have a campaign to help save puffins. Plus a smashing page with information about puffins right on their official website and neat puffin stuff to buy. Now how cool is that??? Check it out: Barbara Bakery

I am going to buy PUFFINS this week.

Yes… I am… totally depressed. My jam didn’t jam. We are canning fruit and veggies for winter along with some jam. Everything has been going along toodly fine. Well everything except my lovely peach jam. Sigh … guess I can use it as pie filling during the long cold months. It’s ever so depressing when you have your tastebuds all geared up for a nice piece of toast with home-made peach jam and you are looking at a pot of peach soup. I had a similar problem with the peach chutney I made last week, but was able to recover and make it thicker. The problem is the peaches are just so damned juicy this year. We are going to have another kick at the peach jam can this weekend. That is after we finish doing tomatoes.

Let’s cheer up with by catching up my sketches.

I mistakenly called the little ovenbird a cowbird in a previous post. Anyway, here is a repeat of the preliminary sketch and the completed drawing. The size difference is soley due to how I scanned it in. As you can see in the preliminary sketch, I focus on the eye first and work my way out. Once I’m happy with the eye, I create a basic outline and then begin to fill in from there.

From Catpaw’s Art work

From Catpaw’s Art work

It’s interesting to see the pictures side by side. As you can see, I’m beginning to get a bit frisky and I’m moving beyond drawing just the heads. I’ve begun to try and sketch in some of the chest and back along with a bit more detail in the feather patterns.

Wings still baffle me. I’m not sure how to tackle them as yet.

I’m using 2 mechanical pencils, one with B lead for the light shading and outline and then I move to 2B for the shading and patterns on the bird. I gently layer up the levels of darkness until I’m happy. The mechanical pencils are excellent because they maintain a good sharp point and allow me to do some very fine, fussy detail on the feathers. I’m also experimenting with various strokes and pressure on the pencil to get the feathered look. I also have a good kneadable eraser which is excellent for dabbing along areas where the feathers should be lighter, or the eye. Just a few light touches create a nice effect.

Here’s the bluejay I was working on:

From Catpaw’s Art work

From Catpaw’ Art work

Yea…I got a chuckle out of the beak too. It’s not quite right and I’ll bet you are asking yourself “what’s wrong with it?” It took me about 1/2 an hour to put my finger on what it is. The jay looks like he’s pursing his lips (er…beak?). It’s angled down just a hair too much which gives him a slightly annal appearance. If I had angled it up just a bit the forehead wouldn’t look so slicked back and the beak would be better proportioned. Oh well….

I’m gearing up to tackle the wings by the end of the week. I’m still waiting for the book on how to draw birds to come in. I’m hoping it will help me with the wings, feet and get the patterns on the feathers down a little better. But I’m going to keep plugging along with my little flock.

Did you know there are people who doubt the existence of nuclear bombs? Revisionists believe Hiroshima and Nagasaki never happened, films of nuclear explosions are doctored, and there has never been any nuclear weapons …. hmmm but they don’t say anything about nuclear power plants. A few even go so far as to doubt atoms exist -”prove there are atoms to be split”. These enlightened individuals believe it’s all a scam perpetrated by the military industrial complex. I would find this amusing except so many were killed or maimed by these weapons. Was Chernobyl a hoax as well? How do they explain away medical isotopes?

Do you think we can put people like this into neon jump suits and have them ring bells as they walk along the street so the rest of us can be warned they are coming thereby making it easier for us to avoid them?

Sorry, no sketches to share today. Have some but too lazy to scan then. Maybe tomorrow.

But I have been pondering something for the last 2 days…. are fish waterproof?