Three New Sketches Available on Etsy

Trzy Koty, conté crayon © B.E. Kazmarski

I’ve added three more daily sketches to my Etsy shop. The choices are based on feedback and I got quite a lot last week, so if there’s a sketch you’d like to see in my Etsy shop, please speak up!

Above is Trzy Koty, done in conte crayon on drawing paper, signed and dated 12/24/11. Cookie, Giuseppe and Mr. Sunshine watch the evening fall on Christmas Eve. Sketched in red conté for the holiday. “Trzy koty” is Polish for “three cats”. Conté is a very special drawing medium, thinking of the sketches of da Vinci and Michelangelo. Not that I’m at that level, but sometimes I feel the connection as I move the conte over the paper and see what appears.

Cookie Has a Drink, graphite pencil and colored pencil © B.E. Kazmarski

Cookie Has a Drink

This is Cookie Has a Drink, done in graphite drawing pencil and wax colored pencil on drawing paper, signed and dated 12/20/11.

Cookie has a nice long drink many times a day, and her little shape over the water bowl is so very familiar. Because she approaches the water bowl in my studio from the same angle and even holds her tail the same way, I could do this sketch in shifts, first her outline, then her dark areas, then to reinforce the fact that she is a tortoiseshell calico I added orange and yellow colored pencil to fill the color and blue in the bowl.

And I’m so glad I have readers like you to share it with; it’s one of the problems with working at home with cats, the simply roll their eyes and go back to sleep when I ask them what they think of what I’ve done.

The Little Panther

The Little Panther

This is The Little Panther, done in felt-tip ink drawing pen on drawing paper, signed and dated 12/17/11.

Mimi has a good stretch on the bathroom windowsill. She is only 6.5 pounds, just a petite little girl, compared to her children and even the tortie girls, but she is sleek and black and graceful, just like a real panther.

I love the varied line quality this pen offers. It’s one of many with a brush-style tip actually shaped like a thin round paintbrush. I tend to press too hard and wear these down so I don’t get fine lines anymore, and I’m looking forward to seeing how well these pens hold up. I have them in several brands, and an illustrator friend recommended another to me. When I’m looking for this line quality in an illustration I typically use a metal crow-quill nib in an old wooden handle, much like the ones map makers used to use, and dip it into the ink of my choice to draw. I’ve always felt I had more control that way, but for quick sketches I don’t want to mess with a bottle of ink! Often I’m standing in the middle of a room and have nowhere to put anything down so I’m holding my sketchpad and all the materials I want to have at hand. I’d be wearing the ink, and so would my house.

Grape Jelly Bean, the most popular sketch yet, needs a unique frame which I have planned, and perhaps I’ll post next week.

Other sketches available

All the sketches in this post are currently available on Etsy, though you can request any I’ve done by browsing them here in the menu by choosing “Daily Images>Daily Sketches“.

Three Cats, pencil © B.E. Kazmarski

This was the first in my postings of daily sketches of my cats, done in pencil on drawing paper entitled Three Cats, signed and dated 12/3/11 of  Jelly Bean, Mewsette and Giuseppe curled together on the bed. I could picture this one as soon as I saw them, and it was all I could to to sneak soundlessly away so I didn’t wake them to get my drawing pencil and pad.

Reticulated Kitties

This is called “Reticulated Kitties“, done in pencil on drawing paper, signed and dated 12/1/11 of four of my kitties piled up on my desk while I’m trying to work. On top is Mimi, on the bottom from the left is Jelly Bean, Mewsette and Mr. Sunshine.

This is drawn in a style I learned as “reticulation” where the entire drawing is done in one line, sometimes retracing a path to get to another point, using loops to make their toes, for instance, and zig zags to create detail and texture, but never lifting the pencil from the paper until the drawing was done. I was inspired to this by the cats themselves and their seemingly endless flowing selves as they piled on each other, though I did cheat a little and do a light sketch underneath as a basis for my one big line.

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.