Daily Sketch: Fangs
Posted: May 3, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, giuseppe, ink, mimi | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat sketches, cats, ink sketch of cat sleeping 2 Comments
Sleeping With Fangs, ink © B.E. Kazmarski
There’s been a lot of this lately, lolling about on my desk. When Giuseppe turns his head upside down, his mouth falls open and I can see two little fangs. Vicious kitty. He fell deeply asleep so I had the chance to sketch him.
Not a difficult or detailed sketch, but just a note on drawing a subject in an orientation different from the way you are accustomed to seeing them. Even looking directly at him, my inner eye kept turning him right side up, and it was almost like yesterday when I was trying to draw around Mimi’s initial outline and it was confusing me.
This was done with a .35 felt-tip technical marker.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Relaxing
Posted: May 2, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, charcoal, daily sketch, giuseppe, mimi | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch of two cats Leave a comment
Relaxing, charcoal pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
I’m glad someone got some work done around here today because my cats were all totally useless. So the temperature was a humid 82 degrees in mid-afternoon. I wasn’t lying around like a dishrag! But I did have two or more cats on my desk all day, and still do at this very moment. I guess they wanted me to see how miserable they were.
Mimi sits up for a brief interlude of awakeness in an entire day of sleeping on top of the same pile of mail in nearly the same position all day. For most of the time, Giuseppe used her as a pillow, at which point you couldn’t see too much of her. Giuseppe takes up enough room for two cats and tries to spread himself as far as he can go.
Even in their resting state, unless they are in a deep sleep, they move constantly. Most sketches take me less than five minutes as my goal is to challenge my observation skills and hand-eye coordination and to keep from getting mired down in details. When I sketch them as outlined figures, I rough in their approximate outline, then go from one section to another with harder lines to define the outline. When I have more figures I rough in all of them then define their heads and other features as quickly as possible.
Paws and tails and heads may move in the meantime but the light rough outline keeps me in line and unless they get up and move completely before I have enough detail I’m fine with filling in quickly from that extremely short-term memory that holds an image in my mind clearly, but only for a few minutes before it begins to fade. In this case Mimi had been initially washing her face and her head was curved down much farther and at a different angle. She sat up, so I worked on other areas of the sketch waiting to see if she would go back to washing her face. In this case the short-term memory was holding too much, and there are times when I will put the sketch aside but keep an eye on the cat in question, and even hours later catch them in the same activity and finish the section I need. She never did go back to that position, so I drew her upright position instead.
If I’ve drawn in guidelines or even begun to firm up an area and they move, I leave the lines there, and I’ll try to work them into the finished sketch. I don’t erase anything unless, when I’m done, something in the finished sketch looks too confusing to let it go, and then I’ll try my best to lighten the lines or remove them. In this case something was confusing to me while I was drawing and I had to remove prior lines. Where Mimi had been leaning forward washing her face as I described above, my prior lines kept me thinking she was crouching and I was tending to draw what I was thinking instead of what was there, that three-quarter back posture, the two alert ears, her attention turned away. I had to erase that original outline as best as I could in order to go on.
All that for this simple little sketch!
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Minding Their Own Business
Posted: May 1, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, jelly bean, mewsette | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch of two cats 6 Comments
Minding Their Own Business, charcoal © B.E. Kazmarski
Sometimes, this is all we see.
I like the times when they are going about their business without me involved. Jelly Bean is curled, sleeping, at the top of the steps where the sun had been shining, briefly awakened by Mewsette as she climbs the steps and rounds the corner into my bedroom. No faces, no interaction with me, they are just being house cats finding their afternoon nap spots.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Mimi’s Sunbath
Posted: April 30, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cats, daily sketch, mimi | Tags: cat art, cat sketches, cats, ink and watercolor, sketch of cat, watercolor, watercolor pencil 2 Comments
Mimi's Sunbath, ink and watercolor pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
Mimi enjoys the warmth of the sun on her one side, and the reflection of it from the cabinet on her other.
I really liked this as an ink sketch and almost left it with just Mimi, but when I had looked at Mimi in this very spot I envisioned an ink drawing with watercolor washes. I began the sketch on watercolor paper, and so I finished it. I like it just as much.
This has both deep shadows and bright highlights, and both direct and reflected light, a challenge for me in ink, for sure! But while Mimi did move her head to face front, look up at me and look behind herself, she sat for long enough for me to get the light and shadow on her torso sketched in with pen, then a bit of watercolor pencil scribbled on top.
When I begin with a new medium I often visualize in it for days as I grow accustomed to it, so I’m not surprised to have two sketches in a row in the same medium and style, after yesterday’s Kelly on the Windowsill. I am growing accustomed to these watercolor pencils, though I think I’m going to allow myself a wider brush than the No. 4 round to see how it dissolves and spreads the paint from my sketchy pencil lines.
I absolutely love drawing in ink, though I’m constantly disappointed in the pens I can get now, the marker style. They are so easy to use, but I seem to wear the tip dry and need to give it a break every minute or so, and I don’t like to stop in the middle of a sketch to wait for the pen to resaturate. I solved it here by having several pens on hand in the same sizes. I have various fountain-style technical pens but I don’t leave ink in them and I don’t think Mimi would sit still while I run upstairs and fill one or two. I also have dip-style pen nibs and bottles of ink, but that has its challenges outside of my studio. I’m going to find one of the fountain-style drawing pens I had looked into years ago, though the drawback of those is that sometimes the ink doesn’t dry quickly enough to watercolor on top of right away, as I do here.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Kelly on the Windowsill
Posted: April 29, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cats, daily sketch, kelly, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat art, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch, ink and watercolor, sketch of cat, watercolor, watercolor pencil 8 Comments
Kelly on the Windowsill, ink and watercolor © B.E. Kazmarski
Kelly enjoys the sun on her back on the bathroom windowsill, and also likely the reflected heat from the deck roof, just below. It’s not all that warm, but just warm enough to have the windows open in mid-afternoon. The pussy willow is right outside the window and the dappled leaves were charming, and the blue sky beyond.
Another combination of media that I enjoy, ink and watercolor. In this case I did the ink sketch first, then scribbled into it with watercolor pencil. The watercolor pencil is a two-part technique, first the drawing, then the watering. In this case I knew I’d want to leave some of my sketching lines and in other cases I wanted to obliterate them.
In other cases, such as the sky and the wall beneath her, I wanted both and I was very pleased with what happened when I just brushed a water-filled brush over my lines. I could achieve a multitude of techniques this way, with just random washes in the sky where I used the brush on its side, but patterned washes in the shadow on the wall where I used the tip of the brush (that’s a white sable no. 4 round, students, you know who you are) in straight parallel lines running through the angled watercolor pencil lines in green and blue.
This is the first time I’ve used this new set of watercolor pencils, Prismacolor 12-color set water-soluble colored pencils. The Derwent set had an excellent reputation, but I found them to be kind of weak in color, especially the darks, once I got the washes on it. I had also used them for a huge illustration for a sign I just finished and had to go over and over areas in order to get them as dark as I wanted, which took away from the feeling of freehand sketching.
In the Prismacolor set, the colors dissolved and blended easily though I’m not sure why the dark green in the leaves did not; it did where I used it in Kelly’s shadows. I had wanted to brush the two greens together to look more random and leafy.
I should have done some color test swatches with the pencils before I began to be sure what shades they would end up. The sky and the shadow on the windowsill behind Kelly are two different shades of blue, but they certainly don’t look like it and kind of blend together.
But so far, I like this set much better than the other two.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Quickly, Before They Wake
Posted: April 26, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, giuseppe, mewsette, pencil | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, pencil sketch of two cats 1 Comment
Quickly, Before They Wake, pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
Giuseppe and Mewsette spent the day on my desk and I watched as they cuddled, stretched and blocked my view. I’ve already sketched those postures, they are moving too much, I’m in the middle of something…
But when they tucked their heads in together like two commas cuddling, I furtively grabbed my sketchbook and a pencil and quietly but quickly stood up to do a quick sketch of their two faces tucked together; sometimes my movements or even looking at them wakens them, especially as the afternoon draws along and they are thinking of dinner. I did manage to snap a photo as well, but they sensed my vigilance and woke up to look around, shift, and the moment was over.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Mr. Sunshine’s Blue-green Bath
Posted: April 25, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cat artwork, cats, daily sketch, mr. sunshine | Tags: blue and green cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch, pastel sketch, sketch of cat 4 Comments
Mr. Sunshine's Blue-green Bath, pastel and charcoal © B.E. Kazmarski
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.
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.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Kelly in Silhouette
Posted: April 24, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cats, daily sketch, kelly, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch, conte sketch, sketch of cat Leave a comment
Kelly in Silhouette, conté © B.E. Kazmarski
Kelly is having a good bath in the sun while shadows and reflections fall all around her from the light streaming in the window. In the strong light she was in silhouette but highlighted by the light on her fur. What better than the depth of charcoal and the strong natural red of conté? A quick outline was all I got before she decided I should feed her and she left her bath and came to me, purring. I finished the rest from memory.
Wish I’d grabbed my pastels before I saw her and ran back to my desk where I keep my art materials. I had headed into the kitchen for a lemonade and found her happily bathing in the sun. Often, the sun falls the same way and they will spend a few days in a certain pattern. Perhaps I can catch her another day.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Bean Line
Posted: April 23, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, jelly bean | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch Leave a comment
Bean Line, charcoal © B.E. Kazmarski
I have a few of my more minimalistic cat drawings from college framed and hanging and stored in portfolios upstairs in my studio where I spent the weekend framing. After all the indulgence in color I am still in that space with just a few black lines on paper.
This one in particular is one black line, a continuous line to draw Jelly Bean’s outline as he sat right in front of me on my desk, dozing. I had to backtrack in a few areas around his face in order to get his profile right, and then I decided to add just the swash for his closed eye, separate from all the rest.
I can smudge pastel around and scribble with the pencil all I want, but if I can’t draw a good line then I need to practice more.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Favorite Daily Sketches Available on Etsy
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cat artwork, cat photographs, cats, daily sketch, feline artwork, marketplace, original artwork, the artist's life | Tags: black cats, cat art, cat merchandise, cats, original art, original sketches 2 Comments
Kelly in Warm Colors, framed pastel, 8" x 10" © B.E. Kazmarski
You could say this is a People’s Choice Gallery! I appreciate the feedback and requests about my daily sketches on The Creative Cat. According to what you’ve asked I’ve expanded the gallery of daily sketches in my Etsy shop to include both framed originals and digital prints as well as a few framed prints. I am working on framing for others as well. If there’s a sketch you’d like to see in my Etsy shop, please speak up!
Above is “Kelly in Warm Colors” in a frame I hand-tinted in tones of gold to match the warm colors in the sketch. For the mats I used a forest green suede-finish mat for that wonderful richness it imparts and the natural patterning of suede that mimics my blending and fingering style when I work my pastel on drawing paper, and a gold liner mat that brings a little bit of reflected light next to the painting. Overall it’s 8″ x 10″, and I’m very pleased to see this sweet little sketch in this more finished form. I am also offering it as a digital print, and in the very near future will also offer this and many others as small prints on stretched canvas—my first proofs of these have worked well and been very attractive. Read more about this sketch from the day I posted it.
Other small and colorful works
Here are a the other small and colorful sketches I’ve added to my gallery.
Grape Jelly Bean, framed oil pastel, 8" x 10" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Grape Jelly Bean from the day I posted it. I learned the art and skill of picture framing years ago when I had an estimate on framing the first of my own cat portraits. Now I purchase directly from wholesale suppliers and often from manufacturers and a portion of my studio and my time is devoted to keeping my matboards, frames, glass, finishes and specialized tools for framing. But I’ll often shop for quality pre-made frames for smaller art because it’s often less expensive.
Colorful Kelly, framed watercolor, 8" x 10 © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Colorful Kelly from the day I posted it. I love these wide, plain white frames I found! The moment I saw them I knew they’d be perfect for these small simple and colorful paintings.
Two Cats After van Gogh, framed digital print, 8" x 10" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Two Cats After van Gogh from the day I posted it. The weathered white frame is nice for small colorful works as well. I had spent some time playing around with customizing mat boards and wide wooden unfinished frames to coordinate with these three works, above, but no matter what I did it just overwhelmed the works. I decided to let them speak for themselves, and these simple frames to do that with just the addition of complementary, unpatterned mats.
The original sketch of “Two Cats After van Gogh” actually sold before I had the chance to post it, but I’ve decided to offer a print framed as the original in its place.
Larger sketches in one or two colors
Several pencil, charcoal, ink and conté sketches were also popular, and I’ve framed the first group for which I gathered complementary frames and mats. In addition to retail frames and custom framing, I also “repurpose” older frames which I purchase at thrift shops, and I have a constant supply which friends give me rather than tossing them in the trash or donating them. Matching art with frames is just as fun.
Curled on the Bed, framed pencil sketch, 12" x 14" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Curled on the Bed from the day I posted it. I’ve had this frame for a while with its little scrolly pattern in a dull gold with a blue-gray wash that fills the areas between the curlicues. I had intentionally included background details in this sketch and thought this frame would help to bring them forward with both the pattern and color.
Three Cats, framed pencil sketch, 12" x 16" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Three Cats from the day I posted it. I use this black molding for a number of things and its matte finish always takes as a very dense black, but that contrasts well with the more delicate pencil lines and shadings of one of my first daily sketches—the one that inspired me to begin posting daily sketches, in fact. I used softer tones with this, a mauve marbled top mat and solid mauve liner mat, to enhance the idea of peaceful rest demonstrated by three cuddling kitties.
Dinnertime!, framed pencil sketch, 12" x 16" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Dinnertime! from the day I posted it. This sketch of the three girls is one of my favorites, and because Kelly and Cookie are torties with touches of orange and Mimi has a good bit of mahogany in her fur I used a rust-colored liner mat to recall those tones, and a silver-gray marbled mat to complement the pencil.
Peaches' Nap Spot, pencil with watercolor, 12" x 16" © B.E. Kazmarski
This sketch is not one of the current set I’ve been posting on The Creative Cat, but from a few years ago when I did sketches around the house occasionally, featuring sweet little Peaches. I’ve used this sketch to illustrate stories and also offer it as a greeting card, but the original has been tucked into a sketch book for safe keeping; I decided to frame it along with these others.
Massive Cuddle Puddle, conté and charcoal, 11" x 14" © B.E. Kazmarski
Read more about Massive Cuddle Puddle from the day I posted it. The full name of this sketch is “Massive Cuddle Puddle Blocks Major Work Space” and coordinates with a few photo posts from a day when my desk was piled high with cats cuddling under the kitty keep-warm lamps. It has surprised me that a medium like conté, which is not very well-known outside of art classes though it’s been around for centuries, was immediately popular with readers. I like its expressiveness and the richness of its colors, especially the red which mimics the natural red earth color often used in traditional art and craft and dating back to prehistoric cave paintings. The top mat on this matches that red color in a red earth toned suede-finish mat, again mimicking the swirls in the conte as it does in my pastels.
Sold Originals, but available as prints and more
Purple Cats, Red Blanket, ink and watercolor © B.E. Kazmarski
Above is Purple Cats, Red Blanket, felt-tip ink technical drawing pen with watercolor washes, signed and dated 1/6/12. This painting sold, and thanks to the buyer for your wonderful complements. I love to see my art go to good homes just as much as I love to see my rescued kitties go to good homes! I’m offering full-size digital prints of this, and I have a small stock of small note cards. I’ll be offering it again at Valentine’s Day as a Valentine, and also as a blank greeting card. See it here on Etsy.
Two Cats After van Gogh, oil pastel © B.E. Kazmarski
The original of this tiny oil pastel sketch also sold to another good home! I’m offering a print framed as the original on Etsy as well as digital prints, and I’m also looking forward to publishing this as a greeting card and in other forms as well. The 5″ x 7″ stretched canvases look nice (you’ll see), and it makes a cool little notebook cover too. We’ll see how many ways I can apply this and the other little colorful sketches. Suggestions are welcome!
Read more about Daily Sketches
Read my initial post about creating and posting my daily sketches.
See other Daily Sketches
I post my sketches here, and you can also browse them here in the menu by choosing “Daily Images>Daily Sketches“. You can find the ones available for sale by visiting my Etsy shop in Daily Sketches, Cats etc.
The Artist’s Life Series
Click here for more articles in “The Artist’s Life” series featuring my influences, inspirations, new work and new products.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
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