Thank You, Chris!

Today I played with a couple of Faber-Castell graphite aquarelle pencils.  Chris Lally posted about using these pencils and posted a lovely painting/drawing of a Lab on her blog.  As soon as I read about it and saw the Lab, I wanted to try using these pencils.  I went to Desert Art Supplies and bought a 4B and an HB.  I had so much fun!  You can use the pencils wet or use them dry and go in with a wet brush.  Here is a cat that I drew this afternoon.  I loved the photograph, but I didn't think this through carefully because I was so excited to get started.  I'm going to paint the cat again in watercolor because I think using color will make it easier to understand his position.  One front paw is tucked under him,his right front paw is by the right side of his head, his body curves around behind his head and his right hind paw is tucked next to his right front paw:)  I'm going to go back in and put in the blanket he's lying on and that should define his paws and I'm going to darken the darks.  I will be doing this again.  This is on 7" x 11" Arches 140 lb cold press.  Try it!  It's really fun!

One more thing - I got an e-mail a little while ago with "An easy cat eye with major wow factor" in the subject line.  I thought, "Oh, my gosh!  Someone is reading my mind!"  However, it was not advice for me for drawing my cat.  It was from Clinique telling me how to make my own eyes into cat eyes:)