Drawing Day

In addition to a surprise trip to a not-so-local art gallery, for my birthday I received a copy of Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists, which I'd read about on someone else's blog. So, though I'm not quite finished the projects in The Artistic Mother, I acquired the suggested supplies and got started. The first exercise involved drawing cats -- from memory or imagination. Since I'd actually left my book on the counter of the local art shop when I'd purchased some supplies, I didn't remember the complete instructions, which were to use a permanent, black pen on white cardstock while lying in bed (so that the pressure on the page would be lighter than on a hard surface). Therefore, since I associate drawing with pencils, my first effort was done in pencil copying from photographs in a science book. (I had to take a photo instead of scanning it because of the myriad technical difficulties that abound with the computers in our home!)

My second "kick at the cat" (sorry -- I couldn't resist -- though I would never actually kick a cat!) was done with the appropriate pen using only my imagination:

The extension activity for this exercise was to select the cat we liked best and re-create it using mixed media. So, for my first re-creation, I used watercolour pencils (with water) and outlined in black marker.

She was a pretty kitty, though I didn't really l like the colouring -- so I decided to try a small canvas and pieced paper. I wasn't confident that I could reproduce her freehand again, so I traced her with tracing paper and cut out the pieces, which I then traced on the papers I selected (one of which was a background that I'd made for the Artistic Mother projects). I painted the background canvas with tubed watercolours -- a medium I've never really used before because I actually thought watercolours always came in pallette form! (Pardon my ignorance, my artistic friends!) I also thought they were always transparent -- which clearly they're  not! It was really like working with acrylics, which I like. Here is the resulting pretty kitty, who quite tickles my fancy:

She's cute and quirky, don't you think? DH says I should do a series of cats like her and frame them together. I like the idea -- though I lack confidence that I could create several others in the same style but in different positions, KWIM? Also -- would I try to mimic the background in all the pieces to create unity in the larger picture? Or would I make them all different and find another way to tie them together? Hmmmm . . . some food for thought. (Feel free to share your opinion in a comment below. Just click on the little word "comments" -- I have yet to figure out how to make that more visible!)

Anyway, while I was doing the initial drawings with pencil, DD12 asked if she could use some of my paper and grabbed a pencil of her own. Using a photo in a book as a reference, she drew this:

Personally, I'm pretty impressed! She's never taken formal drawing lessons -- she just draws a lot.

Do you marvel at any creative skills in your family members? What special talents do they have? What are you doing to develop your own talents and creative skills?