Drawing with Cat 10/31/2012

Now that I'm thinking about it, I really should have done a Halloween Theme on this picture. As it is, I didn't, so you'll just have to suffer with a Gunslinger.

What, you say? A gunslinger!? Yes indeed. I have been watching much too much 24, so I needed to get into my violent side.

Without further ado, the Gunslinger. For this, you will need:

• One dullish HB or 2B pencil
• One automatic pencil
• One white artist eraser
• One basic Bic Round Stic ballpoint pen
• One brightly lit work station

Okay, we're going to start with this very dynamic-looking kneeling person. Use the HB (or 2B) pencil for steps 1-3. It's just a great pencil for keeping your marks light and sketchy. Keep your motions really loose, creating semi-sharp angles for his knees and elbows. Tilt his head down just a tad. As you notice, we only see one arm right now. That's fine. We'll get to arm #2 in a minute. :)

Good job! Now, add the block dimensions. He's going to be a bit slender but well built, so don't make your blocks too too blocky. Give him mass but not bulk... if that makes ANY kind of sense! :) Mark in the joints; elbows and knees, ankles and wrists, and shoulders. Now, as promised, you can mark in the second arm. It's going to appear fairly straight, simply because of the way he's holding his gun.

He is starting to look sort of human! Still using your HB (or 2B pencil, whichever you prefer) go over the entire body, encasing him in skin. Since he's a man, he's going to have a fairly thick neck. Give him a bit of muscle on his arms. As you might have noticed, leg two, the one supporting him on the ground, has been edited. It is a bit higher up now. I have also drawn in "grounding lines", which help keep my perspective consistent. Make the gun a bit more detailed now. Draw in his nose, and a small mouth line. Enhance his chin a bit.

Best part EVER! Very, very carefully, use your eraser to get rid of all the guidelines. I don't know about you, but I find them awfully distracting once I get to this point, and I HAVE to get rid of them before I go any further. Once you've erased at least most of the guidelines, go over his body once more, this time using an automatic pencil. You want to enhance bodily features. Slightly bulk out his chest, adding minor ab details to give him a sense of fitness. Smooth out the muscles in his arms, and add a bit of oomph to his upper leg, the one he's not kneeling on. With the sharp point of your automatic pencil, and using a very light touch, add details to his features, hands, and gun. Good job!

Okay, this might actually be the best part EVER! With your automatic pencil, start lightly drawing in his clothes. I love the long jacket look - it's very gunslinger cool - so mark that in. There's a lot of "pull" in the sleeves around his shoulders, so draw in some stretch lines around the shoulders, and where his elbow curves up. For his legs, he's going to be wearing some sort of jean-like pants, so draw in stretch lines around his knees. Further enhance his face, hands, and gun, and add a bit of hair to his head. Draw in detail for his ear.

Grrr! This might actually be the best part EVER! Carefully erase all the parts of his body you can see through his clothes. Add a tiny bit of detail to the clothes, such as the flap of a pocket on his coat, the tiny slanting lines of his buttonholes, a hint of neckline underneath his jacket, a stitch line down the length of his jeans. You ought to be able to see a bit of finger from his hidden hand near the top of the trigger. Also add a tiny bit of cheek line to his face, and a shadow line where the hollow of his cheek will appear. Erase the bit of head you could see under his hair. Add a tiny bit of detail to his shoes.

This is the easiest part... at least, I think it's easy. You might differ. Go over the entire picture with your pen, taking extreme care around his face. I like Bic pens because they tend to look quite pencil-sketchy when you use them, but they do have a distressing tendency to blot. I've learned how to evade their sneaky blottiness by being sneaky myself, but for beginners this might be an irritating and potentially ruining occurrence. Use a pen you feel you can trust. Any cheap ink pen will do, really. It ends up being personal preference. Once you've inked in your very cool gunslinger, use your artist eraser and get rid of any pencil marks that might still be littering your picture. Excellent! On to the last step. :)





You're going to use a 2B pencil for this, simply because it is a bit darker than an HB pencil. Add a light layer of shadow underneath his hairline, gradually darkening as you head down his face, and becoming significantly darker around his neck. Using dark and light strokes, colour in his hair, leaving untouched areas to signify highlights where the light might be hitting him. Add a line of shadow to his nose, around his eye, and down his nose where his cheek is. Also add a small line of shadow to his cheek, mimicking the hollow in his cheek.

For his coat, you're going to draw substantially dark lines wherever there is a fold line, a pleat, or a gather in his coat. The backside is going to be a bit darker, so use your 2B pencil and add some shadow to the back. Also darken the area beneath his shoulder, as well as the right side of his pocket. Darken his wrist where the sleeve falls, and darken his hand beneath the gun... or pistol. Whatever you want to call it. Darken in the folds where his jeans stretch, and add a second line to the stitch line down his pants, using the Bic pen for this. Ground him with an energetic dash of 2B scribbling beneath his feet and legs. Voila! A gunslinger. Very cool. Very 24. Let's give him a name. How about, Shane Westmore? That sounds 24-ish, doesn't it?

Yay, you've just completed Drawing with Cat picture #3!! How do you feel? Remember, if you try this picture, I'd love to see it. You can post it on your blog and link it to mine. That would be awesome. Sincere thanks to everyone who comments and/or makes the attempt.

Shane Westmore, CTU 

God bless! Catch you on Saturday. Have a boo-tiful Halloween. ;)

Cat

Six-Sentence Satuday 10/27/2012

Good morning! Guess what?

1.) I'M AT A WRITER'S CONFERENCE!

2.) I'M AT A WRITER'S CONFERENCE!

3.) I'M AT A WRITER'S CONFERENCE!

4.) I'M WITH MY FRIEND!

5.) SHE'S A WRITER, TOO!

6.) HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEEEEN!

That's that. I hope you enjoyed those enlivening couple of sentences. This song has been distracting me all evening. And now, got to fly. Life starts very, very early when you're at a Conference.

Ta!

God bless

Cat

Drawing With Cat

Hello, and welcome to instalment two of Drawing With Cat!! (And is it just me, or do you wish British and Americans spelled things the same way? I prefer one L in instalment, but American's MUST use two. **sigh** We're so overcompensating.)

Anyhoozle, here we go!! We are going to do something fairly simple... I think. Just a sweet little girl, quite imaginative, holding a flower. Ready? Set? GO!

First, here's what we need:

• One dullish HB (or 2B) pencil
• One automatic pencil
• One white artist eraser
• One basic Bic Round Stic Ballpoint Pen
• One brightly lit work station

You remember this from last time, right? :-)

Okay, now that's done, off we go.





First, we're going to start off with a little stick figure like this. Grab your HB pencil, making sure it's not too pointy, 'cause otherwise it will leave an indelible mark, and you DON'T want that!


Children are a bit differently proportioned than adults. Whereas adults tend to be drawn 7 1/2 to 8 heads high, children are much less. For this picture, since we're drawing a five-year old, we're going to give her about six heads worth of height.

All right, got that?

Okay, now add the dimension boxes. You want to make sure they're pretty small, because this is a very small little person, so don't make the shapes too large, or too bulky. Lightly sketch in the circles to mark out where elbows, wrists, ankles, and knees will be. Remember, keep your strokes very, very light and very loose. Don't choke up on your pencil or you'll end up with stiff, lifeless strokes that will, ultimately, land you with a stiff, lifeless end product. Light, lively strokes!

Right, now add the physical structure, and erase the superfluous lines that distract from the overall appearance of the girl. Use a fairly careful touch with your eraser. You don't want to permanently delete a line you need. Make a little cup with her hands, and lightly, lightly, lightly etch in where her eye will be. Draw in an ear, and an upturned nose. Children do NOT get straight noses, ever. Give her a soft, round tummy and slenderish little legs. Since I love HB pencils, continue using this pencil as you draw in her shape.

Now you get to graduate to the automatic pencil. In her cupped hands, lightly draw in the shape of a flower. With loose, simple lines add in the slight bell-shape of her dress, and some flyaway hair. Gently draw in a slightly triangular slot for her eye, and a small suggestion of a mouth. Throw on some cute little shoes. At this age, bigger shoes actually look kind of adorable, so feel free to experiment with bigger or smaller shoes.

She's a very imaginative little girl, so at this stage we're going to take a breath and give her some fairy wings. Gently add a criss-cross of lines to the front of her dress, where her wings fasten to her body. Next, erase her legs from the dress, and add a pocket to the material. Lightly darken her hair, putting in a bobble right above her ear.

Looking good! Now, ink her in, using your Bic Round Stic pen, being careful to use the same light touch as you did with the pencil. Add a very gentle "hatching" appearance to her wings. Enhance her eyes, nose, and mouth, and add a bit of bulge to her clothes, where the string cuts over her shoulders waist. Slightly enhance the pleats of her dress, being careful not to get too heavy-handed with the pen.





Last step. With your HB pencil, add the shadow. Darken patchy areas of her hair, leaving sections white and untouched to give the appearance of highlight. Darken the area of her forehead under her hairline, and slightly shadow the curve where the back of her eye meets the cheekbone. Shadow in the entire area under her chin, as well as her neck and shoulders, leaving only a faint "splash" of white between her collarbones. Draw a line of shadow underneath the crisscrossing threads across her chest, and make the shadows where her arm comes out of the sleeve even darker. Add darker lines of shadow beneath her arm where it presses against her dress, in the hollow of her pocket, and down the back pleats. Touch little shadow details to the flower petals, as well as to her legs and to the inside of her shoes. Ground her with a couple dark scribbles under her feet.

Katrina DeLallo, October 23, 2012 - For Cinta

Voila! Excellent job! I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. I'm actually going to dedicate this one to my little sister. Cinta Beth, this picture is for you. Love you, sweetie.

All right, I'll see youse all on Saturday. Until then, have a lovely, lovely few days, and if you draw this picture I'd love to see it. Any blog links are welcome, too. :)

God bless!

Cat

Six-Sentence Saturday 10/20/2012

Good morning to youse all, friendly cyber-neighbourhood blog post readers! It's a gorgeous day today. The sun is shining (so far) and the weather appears to be fairly clement. So, without further ado...

1.) I watched S.W.A.T. last night.

2.) I liked Colin Farrell a LOT in his role... however, Jeremy Renner should NEVER NEVER NEVER play a bad guy... like, ever.

3.) I don't know about you, but I find that music videos tend to influence my tastes on certain songs.

4.) For instance, I like Taylor Swift's "We are never ever ever getting back together" because the music video is... odd, but hilarious.

5.) I completed Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy. The ending is one of those you have to digest and decided whether or not you liked it.

6.) Sort of like Mockingjay, or Ptolemy's Gate... both were the concluding books in trilogies, and their endings influenced how much I liked the trilogies as a whole. Mockingjay made me dislike the whole Hunger Games trilogy, while Ptolemy's Gate increased my liking of the Bartimaeus books by quite a percentage.

That's all for now. Do tune in on Wednesday when we shall have another Drawing With Cat Wednesday. I'm not sure what we'll be drawing, but it should be epic.

Until that day, sweet things.... God bless!!!

Cat

Drawing With Cat

So here we go! The first ever Drawing With Cat Wednesday!!!

First, things you'll need:

• One dullish HB pencil
• One 0.5 automatic pencil
• One white artist eraser
• One basic Bic Round Stic Ballpoint Pen
• One brightly lit work station

All right! Today, we're going to draw a fairly basic fantasy girl. I love draping garments and floatsy hair, so that's why I tend to veer toward fantasy.

First, we're going to start with a very sketchy, fluid diagram like this. Basically, all you want to do here is visualize your character's stance. You want everything to be very loose and free. Use the HB pencil for this bit. It doesn't leave a very hard impression in the paper, so it's easier to erase.

Next, you want to add little box-like dimensions to your character. These will help keep your perspective constant. These boxes create the structure around the fluid lines of your mannequin. Using quick, light strokes, add circles on the mannequin's arms and legs to mark where the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles are.

Still using the HB pencil, flesh out the character. Using light strokes, fill out the arms and legs while gently enhancing the waist, hips, and chest. This tends to be my experimental section. This is where my biggest changes will occur, whether or not I like an angle of an arm or leg, or if I think a foot should be pointed or flat. Feel free to experiment as well. Don't get too detailed here. At this stage, everything should still be extremely sketchy.

With a small eraser, get rid of every line that could be construed as "sketchy". Now, graduate to the automatic pencil. Still using an extremely delicate touch, even more delicate now you're using a sharper pencil, go over the mannequin's physique, gently enhancing curves and joints while being careful to keep that sense of freedom. Lightly touch in the eyes, nose, and mouth. Add the hands and toes.

Now that the mannequin is complete, time to throw on some clothes! Again, always being very gentle and light of touch, sketch in the very basic outlines of a floatsy shirt, a flaring skirt, and a very flimsy scarf. Add little broken lines around the bottom of the skirt, to "see" how the skirt wraps around the entire body. Around her waist, lightly draw in a belt. Last, sketch in a couple wavy lines off her head. This will become hair later. 

This part is pretty simple. Using an artist's eraser, get rid of all the lines you can see through the clothes, such as her legs and arms. However, where the scarf falls, don't erase those lines completely. Lighten them significantly, but allow the lines to sort of "show" through the fabric. This will give the scarf a very thin, delicate appearance later. Fill out the hair, using lines to depict full hanks of hair rather than individual strands.

This part is a two-step process. First, using your Bic pen, trace over the entire picture, changing the pencil lines from pencil to pen. The only part you want to avoid is the upper body area that you can see through the scarf. Take care while tracing around her face. As with the pencil, use very, very light motions with the pen. Don't press too hard. Once all the lines have been penned in, take the artist's eraser and erase every bit of pencil. except for the middle section where the scarf lies. That bit you want to keep in pencil. You should now have a very clean, finished-looking drawing, devoid of pencil. But we're not done yet!

Now we'll apply the first layer of shadow. For this, you get to go back to the HB pencil. I like to really darken the underside of her hair near her face, just to give it really good contrast. Now, gently shadow the sleeve on the left, completely filling it in. Add shadow to the underside of the right sleeve as well as the interior fabric where it falls around her arms. Darken the interior portion of her shirt, and add a very, very light shadow around the shirt hem and to the "folds" in the rop part of her shirt. Darken most of her feet, leaving little splashes of light around the ankles. Looking at the mannequin, very gently shadow the left side of her face.

Now, go over the entire picture, using heavier strokes to lay down a thicker layer of shadow. Make everything on the left side of the picture quite dark in shadows, gradually lightening your strokes as you move around to the right. Use the HB pencil to add a "plaid" pattern  to the scarf. Keep your strokes very light. There should still be a hint of her shirt and belt showing through the pattern. Use the automatic pencil to shade in the rest of her hair. Alternate hair shadows with patches of solid colour interspersed with streaky, sketchy lines. Add a splash of dark HB pencil "scribble" beneath her feet, to ground her. Ta Da! Your first Drawing With Cat tutorial is complete!

I hope you learned something. Please feel free to leave a comment if you felt like something was not explained clearly, or if you'd like to have an extra step diagrammed. Also, if you try this picture, I'd LOVE to see any finished projects! (Hint hint)

See you on Saturday, then. Until that blessed time, God Bless!

Cat

Six-Sentence Saturday 10/13/2012

Another week gone, another week up. Amazing how that happens every seven days, isn't it?

1.) I hate that Blogger has changed its interface yet again. This time, I don't think there's a way of reverting back, either. (Blogger! How COULD you!??)

2.) I forgot how much fun it was to work with charcoal. Charcoal, charcoal, charcoal!! (Pencils, that is.)

3.) I'm currently reading the final book of the Mistborn trilogy.

4.) I am amazed at how many times the author managed to throw a curve ball I never saw coming.

5.) I got two awesome packets of feedback on a WIP. I feel like such a writer! HOOOOT HOOOOOT!

6.) Three of my favourite personal comments, whether in greeting or replying to someone's text or chat, are "Hoot Hoot!" "Hillooooooo!" and "Kewl." Don't know why.


That's all for now. However, I do have a silly video to leave youse all with. I don't like the Family Guy. I have never liked the Family Guy. However, I gotta say, this is pretty freakin' hilarious. I know most people have gone through something like this at least once in their lives! Enjoy. God bless!

Cat

What-to-do Wednesdays

I have been having a hard time thinking of things to do for Wednesdays. There are so many writing blogs out there, I hate giving the same old advice.

Then I thought, I may be a writer, but I'm also a fairly good artist, if I do say so myself. So I thought, what if I posted how-to-draw tutorials? That might be kind of fun. So, starting next week (provided nothing untoward happens) I shall introduce HOW-TO-DRAW WEDNESDAYS. I hope its a good experience. :-)

Until next time.... cheers! God bless!

Cat