Pet Portrait: Sadie the Cat
Not sure why, but most of the commissions I get of cats usually come in around the holidays. To which I say: the more the merrier! [Waits for the pun applause to die down] This time around the featured pet even brought a festive blanket in tow. Not gonna lie, there were a few days in there when that blanket made me question my love of plaid, something I didn’t think was possible!
Original Photos: If there was one thing that was more difficult to draw than the blanket (I kept losing my place among the squares, and may have started to color a few patches red that weren’t… ), Sadie’s nose was definitely it. Having to make up stuff when working on these portraits is always super stressful for me, especially when it’s something as prominent as a nose. It’s smack dab in the middle of the face! So if I screw it up there’s no way everyone won’t notice and/or fixate on it. Unfortunately that’s exactly what I had to do for Sadie, with little to no hints from the original photo reference (sometimes I can get a vague understanding of things when lightening up a digital image, but this was a scanned photo so that option wasn’t available). The best I could do was guess based on some additional photos from when she was grown up. Fingers crossed that what I went with was accurate!
Paper Used: Strathmore Recycled Drawing Paper (400 Series) cut to 5x7".
Prismacolor Colored Pencils Used:
White - PC938
90% French Grey - PC1076
70% French Grey - PC1074
50% French Grey - PC1072
30% French Grey - PC1070
10% French Grey - PC1068
Black Raspberry - PC1095
Tuscan Red - PC937
Crimson Lake - PC925
Crimson Red - PC924
Scarlet Lake - PC923
Dark Brown - PC946
Light Umber - PC941
Beige Sienna - PC1080
Putty Beige - PC1083
Ginger Root - PC1084
90% Cool Grey - PC1067
70% Cool Grey - PC1065
50% Cool Grey - PC1063
30% Cool Grey - PC1061
10% Cool Grey - PC1059
Black - PC 935
Progress Pics: Can you guess what was on my mind while working on this portrait?
Time-Lapse Video: If you look closely you’ll notice a tiny section of this video was slightly zoomed in compared to the rest of the footage because I may have accidentally recorded in slow motion instead of time-lapse on my iPhone… (Facepalm…). Good thing I could speed it up to more or less match the rest of the footage! That would’ve been super weird otherwise.
Time Spent: 45 hours and 20 minutes. I blame drawing out the blanket for some of this, but still… My efficiency needs some work.
Up Next: I have one more Christmas commission to write up and edit the time-lapse video for, then it’s drawing time! Of what? I don’t know. But there will be drawing!
Until next time! Lauren H.
Follow @BewareOfTrees