Drawing an Important Subject
- Kaaren Poole
- 58 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Whenever I draw, I portray subjects that are beautiful and interesting to me, but every once in a while my subject has special importance. And that’s the case this week. I drew Grayson.
Drawing an Important Subject
Grayson is a diminutive stray cat who showed up in my garden last summer. I welcomed her, fed her with the others (a total of three showed up last year), talked to her and interacted with her whenever I could. She was very wild when she first arrived and it was probably a couple of months before I saw her regularly. By then she was appearing every evening right on time for dinner. But I’ve never been able to approach within a few feet of her, let along touch her.
Things changed last Sunday. In this picture, she’s sleeping on a chair in my studio. My sister’s dog had caught her. My sister and I managed—with extreme difficulty, including falling in the snow more than once—to catch Grayson. She’s been in my studio ever since, which is eight days now.
With her confined, I’ll have a fighting chance to tame her, then I’ll get her to the vet. I intend for her to be an indoor cat from now on unless. The only reason there would be a different outcome is if I’m unable to tame her and she’s desperate to go back outside. But, given her behavior in the studio, I don’t see that happening.
So when I set out to draw her, my subject meant a lot to me.
Getting Ready to Draw
Here I’m going to talk about the drawing process. But this week in my newsletter, I’ll be exploring the spiritual aspects which drawing can take on. At the end of this post there’s a link to my website where you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter, An Artful Path, if you so desire.
My photo was rather dark, so before I began drawing, I lightened it in Photoshop Elements and printed is as my resource. By the way, I couldn’t make out what was happening with the tip of her tail and her feet, probably her back feet. I thought they were probably tucked under her tail. Since I couldn’t tell I figured I didn’t have to worry about drawing them.
I almost always begin what I intend to be a finished graphite piece with a line drawing. From there, I add more line detail then build value contrast with even more detail and some shading. With the shading, I try to avoid having individual lines visible—just shapes of lighter or darker graphite.
A Different Approach
But for this one, I proceeded differently. I did begin with a line drawing, but with very little detail. As soon as I could, I switched to creating shapes of particular values by stroking around and around in tiny, connected circular strokes. By placing them close together, the effect was a shape not a line. Confusing? If so, I’m sorry. I can’t think of a better way to describe it, except to point out that the shading around the spiral of writing is exactly what I mean by drawing shapes rather than lines.
Choosing this method rather than my usual approach was an unconscious decision. But what might have contributed to it was my desire to finish the piece relatively quickly—it took about two hours. Also, the shapes technique seemed natural for portraying her fur‒the egg-beater grooming style.
A Few ‘Technical’ Problems
Before I close, I have a few more comments. Cautions, really.
The paper I used was in a spiral bound 7” X 10” tablet of Canson 98lb Mixed Media paper. In this type of tablet, each sheet is perforated so one can tear it out of the tablet. I should have removed it out before I drew rather than after I finished. When I tried to tear it out, it tore from the perforation about ¾” into the drawing—into my finished drawing! Bummer.
Second, I was naturally trying to center my drawing on the page. But I misjudged. When I tore the paper out of the tablet, I discovered that it wasn’t centered. It was offset to the right. This is a case of my eye being fooled to think the paper was wider than it was because of the area of paper to the left of the perforation.
Hope for Grayson
Drawing this piece was a calming homage to this little cat and also a hope for both her future and out future together.
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