31: page of carefree cats

 

I just filled a page with cats.

Four of them are based on existing drawings on the internet, one by Rayne van Sing, and I made some pencil lines before inking. But after those four I just started brushing cats in ink freehand. I just put down a tail and thought up the cat attached to it.

Soon I started with ears instead of tails. A cat with personality flows much easier from the ears than from the tail, don’t you think?

Incidentally I just asked my own cat, who was deep asleep, in a calm voice: “Lillepoes, would you like a treat?” and she was up like lightning. Her flow might have been a bit sleep groggy but she definitely starts from her ears.

Here’s a picture from Lillepoes:

(the wig is photoshopped) She’s a shorthaired Birman, the brunt of the litter from an irresponsible breeder. She has health issues because of that. Inbreeding is so dumb. But Lillepoes is a delight.

ON THE BRUSHING
I found new features in my brush, like the more chunky style of the little dude sitting in the middle. Fun to do and so expressive. I do recognize that style from an existing comic…

I like how this brush can do both: sleek sumi-é style lines and chunky lines. It’s a tad unreliable for sumi-é lines though, compared to true sumi-é brushes. It adds to the not-being-able-to-control-everything-ness which is something I ought to embrace. And I try to do so and it is liberating.
Did I tell you? I killed off my joy in Japanese brushwork because I let ambitions take over, I started to create for imaginary costumers. It killed the process of joyful creating and I haven’t been brushing in the Japanese way since.
So it’s nice to see something come back in these cats and not worry about things.

Hey, this was fun to do! Pretty carefree and fun. Will do again.

TODAY and TOMORROW
This is the last day of my July 2014 challenge of making a drawing each day.
Come tomorrow this blog will have a new name and a new angle. But still the same purpose: getting me to draw and show them despite hesitance. See you tomorrow!

30: toe whiskers

 

Meet Mimi, a beautiful Turkish Van. She loves Lieneke and Joeri although they never feed her, or so she claims.

She has toe whiskers.

29: three cats and a bumblebee

This cat is sketched after a stock photo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I thought it looked pretty grumpy so I redrew it in a happy state:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is a x-mas cat I have hanging in the hallway. The bauble is friendly, this drawing is awful. But I’m sharing anyway.

 

and a happy bumblebee which would benefit a lot from colouring.

 

 

 

 

But unfortunately I’m having trouble getting things done. I’m participating in a sleep restriction project and I’m under PMS both of which make it not easy to sit down and play.

I also feel everything has been done by others and much better too. Today I discovered the work of Amélie Fléchais and I am floored. The way she treats her pages, the colouring, the fun in the details, the stories, the whole atmosphere and the things she accomplishes. It is wonderful, absolutely wonderful!

And it stops me right in my tracks.

It enforces the hormonal whispers that I’m a failure. And it raises suspicions that having a public blog is not the right way for me to do this drawing thing, I lost my carefree approach and I feel a daily duty to post. Lastly: looking at examples such as Fléchais makes me feel that more time each day should be spend sketching and drawing to get anywhere. A requirement I cannot honour, not yet. If ever.

Three reasons that bug me and make this daily challenge hard to do. So… I’ll have to just wait a few days until I get my sleep and hormones sorted and see what’s what.

25: Enjoying Life

two drawings.

One to follow a train of thought that 20: Good Boy inspired.
(The bird was just to warm up. Hence I didn’t erase the pencil lines)
The second one was to enjoy the contrast between the furry bumblebee and the mole (?) in thin lines. Somehow the bumblebee didn’t turn out as rugged as the wolf in 20: Good Boy did. And the mole didn’t get the thin, airy lines I envisioned. Slip of the brush, that. I refilled the brush in a part of the inkwell that had no ink and then didn’t pay attention at pressure when inking.

I did explore the freedom of giving the animals just sticks for limbs. Trying hard not to care too much. To allow myself.

And I tried my hand at colouring with aquarel. I enjoy it more than mumbling in Photoshop. On purpose I used very cheap paint and a brush I probably bought when I was at high school (that would be somewhere in the last century). I work better with cheap materials, it relieves the duty to make it the most beautiful. (black line brushes are exception though. And paper. In those inferior material won’t bring freedom, only frustration)(Oh. I will get frustrated when these paints turn out no to be light fast. Hm. Guess these are internet illustrations after all.)

I enjoy the more accidental bush strokes I used in the colouring. With that cheap brush and unreliable paint (and an untrained hand) I just didn’t bother trying to colour within the lines. As I do with Photoshop.
But I enjoy it only in colouring. In the black lines I don’t enjoy not having absolute control as much…

Also I’m not drawing every day, as you have notices. I now draw when I want to, when I enjoy it. I find I enjoy my ideas for drawing more that way and I no longer feel the pressure of having to perform. These weeks I’m into a Sleep Restriction Therapy program and my daily to-do list was sucking the joy out of my days.
I’ll be cautious this more relaxed attitude doesn’t slip into not drawing at all.

I’ve found that when I start off by looking at drawings I enjoy or illustrators I admire, I easily get in the mood to draw. So for now I’m not worried I’ll loose the motivation to draw.

Two ideas for next month:
1. practise more with each individual drawing. Make several versions of the same drawing. After I finish one I often see things I’d like to do different. I want to explore that. Also: do a warm up.
2. study existing illustrations and copy them. (copy them in my own style, not in the style of the illustrator) (as if I’ve already got my own style! Ha!)
By doing this I get to explore their subjects, their lines, their treatment of space. Chun eun-sil is an artist that really opens my eyes in those respects.

Update: I’ve been just informed that I indeed already have a personal style shining true. I do not see it myself. I see i draw the same as I did when I was 12 years old. I have not developed since then.
However, I know my own eyes and brain ofte see not wjat others see. So I’m just tinkering on, trying to postphone final (e)valuation or justification my my style untill I’ve drawn a year or something. Untill then: keep playing. Keep going when my whim takes me,
Like the 12 year old I’m aparently am.

23: Yarn Party

“We’ll just exchange invitations until one sticks.”

I’m always trying to meet up with my knitting and spinning friends but it’s often a hassle to find a time and a place and an energy level that works for everybody. So we’re growing into the habit of just planning dates and parties a lot and see who can make it. It’s a bombardment of yarny invitations!
Individually, we slowly learn to not feel bad to once again have to decline but look forward to a next opportunity.

I made this drawing fast, inspired by the message of a spinner who cannot come to my upcoming party. Perhaps this is a way of drawing that suits me. I get inspired easily. It’s the thinking and planning of the perfect(ish) execution that trips me up.

20: Good Boy

“Good boy”

inspired by a postcard my gnome friend send me, it features the artwork of MierPapier.nl

I used another notebook and I really like how the paper interacts with the brush (namely not too much).
I thoroughly enjoyed making the textured outline of the wolf:

19: ochtendhumeurspook

Getting out of bed is difficult.

made on a drawing app on my iPad, to try it out.

18: Morning song

notes to self:
– it is another year before you need to do anything with this drawing thing. Until then: just have fun.
– drawing in the morning works best
– select white colour range at 150%, not 200%

17: Snorrepost

These I did not draw today.

I was reading cat story blog Katzenworld and was reminded of this little leaflet I made back in 2007. It features cat stories from cats I knew personally and I enjoyed illustrating it. The texts were clumsily printed and cut and pasted (with actual see through tape! I knew nothing back then) and xeroxed and then the lines were drawn and it was xeroxed again on green sturdy paper and coloured by hand with pencils. I send them to some friends and family but was both very shy and ambitious about them.
Only eight of these exist.

Back then I thought I might make this a series and people could become a member and tell me their stories and pay upfront for the postage. Much like the Poezenkrant which is a non-news cat paper appearing irregularly since the 1970’s.
But Spring 2008 I got ill and I never made a second edition, even though I had gathered some stories.
Also, the pressure of executing an ambitious plan and trying to make beautiful things for people I know personally was too much for me.

But cat stories, gotta love them! And I really enjoyed drawing these, thinking up the frames and subjects.

As you may not read Dutch here are the subjects of the articles:

• There’s my shorthaired Birman cat Lillepoes who is always worried whenever someone takes a bath.
• Also, she learned to eat very quietly when taking food from the bowl of the other cat -which she’s not supposed to do!
• There’s a musing about cat names and how cat always have other names than the ones their passport says. My cat Lillepoes’ real name apparently is “chocolate face” or “stinktoes” or “come-and-get-it!”.
• Assepoes was my grandmother’s cat, she supervised the puzzles my nan did.
• Witje takes charge whenever someone makes a phonecall.
• Ama got accused of being mentally disturbed, by a vet no less! Later on she got lost and put in kitty jail but was rescued by her owner who wrote me a letter.
• Poem was 16 years old and couldn’t hunt any more but the day she found a mouse that Lillepoes had killed, she “hid” the mouse so quickly nobody knew where it had gone. She was oh so proud!
• One day a wild kitten walked into the woods surrounding my cabin and totally had no clue. He fled into the grass which turned out to be a pond and later on climbed into a shrubbery and sat in a birds’ nest. It was the weirdest thing. I caught it and it was socialized and put up for adoption.
• Then there’s one article about the research all cats conduct into gravity. And how they hide all their testing material under the couch.

The name is “Snorrepot” because “snorren” is the purring sound cats make (akin to ‘snoring’) with the emphasize on their contentment.
Other things can “snor” too: the stove or old fashioned mopeds. It’s also the plural of ‘moustache’ in Dutch which is logical because cats purr contently through their moustaches.
“Pot” is a vessel to keep tea or coffee in (or plants). Tea and coffee pots can be on top stoves and radiate happy homey associations.

The full title is: “Snorrepot, little cat stories to go with your tea”
(‘tea’ in Holland always means a cup of tea.)
I really wanted it to be friendly and homely.

I never made a second edition but I did use the name Snorrepot as a nickname when I became a member of the international knitting community Ravelry.com in Spring of 2009. 4 million members that community now has! A lot of them love cats.

On the back there’s a wordplay: “Snorrepost” where “post” is mail and I thought to feature letters from readers.

I really enjoy seeing this again and I find it funny to name this blog post “Snorrepost”.
Seeing this I’d love to make another edition. But the ambition is already making grabby hands towards my peace of mind. So for now I just want to share this with you. If I ever meet you in real life I’ll show you the original, it has one other page which I couldn’t show here.
Go visit Katzenworld for cat stories 🙂

16: snowwhite family portrait

Why did nobody point out the practical issues of living in the house of dwarfs?
Sandy Allen, the tallest women in the world, would have.