Here's a small one, that I wanted to be a faster project than the last (to tide me over until my A3 Canson pad arrived in the post!).

It's an oriental shorthair on A4 Canson Bristol Board. He's only about 8inches high, and I'm finding it quite a challenge to keep the detail small enough!

I intend on making the shading around the cat significantly darker, whilst trying to keep the majority of the cat's body lighter, so it stands out, like in the source photo. Good practice for working with light coloured fur....

(btw, my A3 Canson pad arrived at the weekend, but I will see this through with patience!).

Becky.

You have a good depth to the ear, although you need to look at the actual form of the bottom right end - it isn't really as you have depicted it... and the nose is too shallow and the nostrils not properly studied. But what the heck... as a trial drawing this is looking OK and is great practice. And I do appreciate that at just 8" high it's all too easy to make small errors - which at this scale can become big ones

Are you continuing with this? Can we see an update?

Here's a piece of ear that might help you understand the form of a cat's ear more - although it does look a little over-complicated in this drawing. If I can find a simpler version I'll post it later.

MIKE

www.SibleyFineArt.com
www.Starving-Artists.net

the ear that you posted is amazing - what's your technique for getting the white hairs on the darker background and making them so immaculate and thin? - even if it is negative drawing - how so thin!!??

here's my progress so far. this one's taken longer - things are busy at work and it saps my creative juices

one day I'll escape!

I can see that the hairs in the right-hand (our right) ear were incised. Not the whole length, just the ends where the bunches split into single hairs. I like tis technique as it allows you to draw the tone behind the hairs while ignoring the hairs themselves. Do you remember those "magic painting books"? Where you painted with plain water and the colours appeared? Well this is a little the same. Shade the background in lightly and the incised white hairs appear from nowhere!

I've used incising also for the short hairs under the chin and for the hairs in the left-hand ear. It would appear (I have this drawing framed on my studio wall) that I have also used incising for the hairs at the base of both ears. I don't recommend incising lines that cross other already incised lines - there's a strong chance that the surface will tear at the junction.

The rest is just negative drawing.

I wish I could scan this a bit sharper for you but I scanned it through the glass and don't want to take it out of its frame.

MIKE

www.SibleyFineArt.com
www.Starving-Artists.net

All feedback welcome, as long as it doesn't entail doing loads of work again - I don't think my hand can take it!

thanks,

Becky.

"We must become the change we want to see" - Gandhi

The only criticism I have is that the hair in the cat's right ear is too straight - they look a little like bristles in a brush but the ends should really curve to our left as you go downthe ear.

Your images didn't embed because you sent them as bitmaps (.BMP) which this forum can't accept. I've taken the liberty of converting them to JPEGs for you....

MIKE

www.SibleyFineArt.com
www.Starving-Artists.net

The effect of layered fur is really well done.

MIKE

www.SibleyFineArt.com
www.Starving-Artists.net