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Gesture Sketch of Cat

The story behind the sketch:

Thomas was sitting on the couch in the cat-nap position; sort of sleeping while sitting up. I liked the way his paws were folded and wanted to capture that in particular. I was busy with other things but decided to take a few minutes to do a sketch.

my experience in doing this sketch:

Thomas’ eyes didn’t stay closed long once I knelt in front of him & started to work. He was mystified by my studying him so intently. But after a few minutes, he relaxed and resumed his napping. I found it fairly easy to do his body but quite a bit tougher to draw his head & facial features. Since this was basically a “gesture sketch” ( one where the artist  sets a very limited amount of time to draw, & tries to capture angles, general shapes & the “direction of flow” ) I didn’t  go for complete accuracy or much detail. This  was just to allow me to capture the essence of Thomas’ posture. A gesture sketch can really help set in the artist’s mind the contours of the subject , which is quite an aid should a more detailed drawing be done later.

The technical stuff:

A plain ol’ school pencil was used for this ( a perfectly servicable tool for many sketches).  On Strathmore Drawing  tablet paper.

NOTE: All images and text in this post are Copyright K. A. Renninger 2011. I am more than happy to have you share them through your own blog, and hope you will do so—but you must give me credit. Anyone who uses them to make money will be prosecuted.