Concentrating on a Cat (Tim, That Is)

I'm still thinking about my upcoming time at the Center for Cartoon Studies this summer.

In addition to wanting to practice simplified people, I want to practice simplified animals as well.

Happily, my cat Tim is quite willing to pose almost any time.  He loves to be looked at and admired.

This first page shows Tim in a variety of positions--and me messing with a variety of approaches to drawing him and his striped orange and white coat.  How to best depict that with just pen and ink?  How much detail is necessary?  How much can I simplify?

This next page came from an online course I took with Veronica Lawlor, experimenting with mark-making, and drawing without a contour line (which I almost always use).  Not the sort of style I'm used to using, or seeing in comics, but then it reminded me of some of the greats who use a great deal of lines--R Crumb, Roz Chast.  Not that this looks like their work.  But it reminded me to go back and study how they do what they do.

Finally, I share this portrait of Tim, which doesn't look like him at all, but which I did in pen and ink, and then washed with color.  I wanted to play with how I could use color with the pen and ink.  I wanted to see if, knowing I was going to add color, I could have left more ink lines out.  I wanted to play with left whites and with shadows.

Also, this is the first thing I've done in a new Hahnemule Nostalgie sketchbook, which several of my drawing colleagues have raved about.  You can only get them from Wet Paint Art in Minneapolis--they have a lovely online shop as well.  The paper is thick and smooth and the pen glides beautifully on it.  And the watercolor is slow to absorb, so you can move it about.  The paper doesn't buckle.  I look forward to experimenting with it more!