Pet Portrait: Sprout the Cat
Meet Sprout the cat! I started the year the same way I ended the last, drawing cats. Both kitties wearing bells, might I add, something I feel safe to assume acts as an early warning system for their humans to be aware of mischief being afoot.
Original Photo: Once it was decided which of the photo options available would make the best portrait, I had to do a little finagling with sliders to get Sprout’s colors to be more accurate to her actual, non-washed-out fur tones. Don’t ask me to repeat the process cuz who knows if I can — I am not that skilled when it comes to these things.
In addition to making up the tip of an ear as I did in my previous portrait of Silas the Cat (again, a simple task I manage to make ten times harder by irrationally stressing about it for no reason), I also had to use Sprout’s right ear to correct the colors of the left that were lost to the intense shadow from the furniture she was hanging out in.
As with that shadow, I lightened the shadows a bit in general because they were just so deep from the overhead lighting.
Paper Used: 400 Series Flannel White Strathmore Artist Paper cut to 8x10”
Prismacolor Colored Pencils Used:
Cream - PC914 Sable - PC940 Ginger Root - PC1084 Beige Sienna - PC1080 Bronze - PC1028 Sandbar Brown - PC1094 Sepia - PC948 Blush Pink - PC928 Deco Pink - PC1014 Pink Rose - PC1018 Greyed Lavender - PC1026 Rosy Beige - PC1019 Clay Rose - PC1017 Cloud Blue - PC1023 Powder Blue - PC1087 China Blue - PC1100 Grey Green Light - PC289 Pale Sage - PC1089 Deco Aqua - PC1016 Celadon Green - PC1020 Light Aqua - PC992 Aquamarine - PC905 Peacock Blue - PC1027
White - PC938 20% Warm Grey - PC1051 30% Warm Grey - PC1052 50% Warm Grey - PC1054 10% Cool Grey - PC1059 20% Cool Grey - PC1060 30% Cool Grey - PC1061 50% Cool Grey - PC1063 70% Cool Grey - PC1065 90% Cool Grey - PC1067 10% French Grey - PC1068 20% French Grey - PC1069 30% French Grey - PC1070 50% French Grey - PC1072 70% French Grey - PC1074 90% French Grey - PC1076 Black - PC935
Progress Pics: Yes, yes I did mash two pics together to make the 4th pic the same orientation as the rest of the pics.
Initially I thought about doing an aqua background to go with Sprout’s collar, and though I actually like the look of them, eventually the tried and true light blue won out.
Time-Lapse Video: (Coming soon! Or in years... Honestly the latter is even more likely now that I finally switched from a Mac and no longer have that built in video editing software…)
Time Spent: 49 hours and 35 minutes
Up Next: Unless someone jumps the line, I am back to my favorite dog breed with a wriggly roly-poly of a beagle named Gracie.
Until next time!
Lauren H.