Equal Time for Cats

1/22/24 Boots (reference photo by Samantha Le)

“Do you draw cats, too?”

I had been drawing so many dogs lately in support of Dog Gone Seattle that some people were under the impression that cats were ineligible for portraits. Of course, I draw cats, too – though I admit that they are still harder for me than dogs. With their flatter faces, there’s less form to show, even when the lighting in the reference photo is good (and often it is not). In any case, cats got equal time recently.

Reptar, the black cat shown below, was possibly the most difficult pet sketch I’ve done so far. He was harder than all the black dogs as well as the two black cats I’d drawn previously. I didn’t do an underpainting this time, and maybe that would have helped.

Incising tools

The only part that was easy was the white whiskers, which I made by using an incising stylus before applying colored pencil. I bought a set of incising tools that I had learned about in Crystal Shin’s botanical-drawing workshop. Although she taught us the trick for making light-colored veins in leaves, I’m getting a lot more use out of the trick and the tools now that I’m drawing pets. Even black dogs and cats seem to have white whiskers. (Although I sometimes forgot to include it in the media images below, I incised the whiskers on all cats shown here.) 

1/25/24 Basil (reference photo by Alison Campbell)

1/22/24 Reptar (reference photo by Samantha Le)

1/23/24 Megan (reference photo by Karen Wong)

Another challenge about cats is their marquise-shaped pupils when they’re contracted. Unless the pupils are fully dilated, the all-important tiny catch lights are hard to retain.

Speaking of eyes, you might think I exaggerated Megan’s enormous eyes (right), but I measured several times for accurate proportions. Amazing, aren’t they? She looks like a manga character!

I used to refer to this type of orange-striped cat as "orange tabby," but I learned that the proper term is "ginger" cat. That challenging color required blending several pencils.