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.

Stumble it!