Kitty Sketch

I took some photos of Smelly Cat in his regular sleeping spot in the sewing room with the plan of making some sketches from them. And now I have the first one.  He is Mr. Highly Prized, a lucky stray kitty who showed up on the front porch one day in 1996 and moved himself in. He is the mushiest kitty you will ever find, tolerates just about any hugging and squeezing you might need to give him.  He is a sweetie, getting on in years, and spends most of his time heat sucking on top of the cable box or in any sunny window.

So I turned one of the photos to black and white because I really wanted to see the light and shadow of the photo without the distraction of color. He's a grey cat so there wasn't much color to begin with. I haven't sketched like this in a very long time (count decades).  I consider sketching to be different from "drawing" which I do a lot more of the time.  I draw faces, designs, quilting line drawings, but sketching is different to me.  I don't know if I'm finished with this one but it was a good place to pause. So here is the photo and the sketch:

I think it's a good start anyway. I might do a quick pen sketch as well later today. We'll see what the day brings.

WIP It! WIP It Good!

I'm working on a number of things all at once-what's new about that, you ask-and I realized at least one of them had steps in progress and that it might be interesting to follow my own steps.

I started with sketches I worked on during my days at Dish that were exercises in drawing with a continuous line. Again this is so I can later use it on a quilt and I'll have worked out how I need to "draw" with the sewing machine. I have an autumn themed quilt top that I made a couple of years ago with dubious skill but that gives me permission to try more adventurous things in quilting it.  I have an idea in mind that is way out of my league at this point but here's how to get there.  Break it down into bite sized lessons and apply them when I'm better at them. Back to the sketches:

I started with this daffodil that will have a future elsewhere.  Then I went for dandilions:

(<--new friend found living in sewing room, now evicted) 

which led me to thinking about milkweeds which release fluffy things similar to dandilions but which are more autumnal than either daffodils or dandilions.

 I did a layout sketch for a general idea for the aforementioned quilt and then I made a small quilt sandwich with muslin and my favorite cotton batting and sewed just the milkweed, pods and floaty fluffy parts all with one line:

Now I want to attack the little sandwich with paintstiks and/or inks.  And we're off!! Let more fun begin!! Oh, and don't forget to feed the fish before you go!! Scroll down and they're there!