All Kinds of Cats

OK, I'm being disciplined and following the directions in the artbook for children. The next assignment was to draw this lion (Leo the Lion) with step by step directions. After the basic lion is drawn with markers in black, then I was free to finish it as I wanted and this is what my finished drawing looks like and it really does look like child's play. It was fun again. I did do a first one and Paige came over to play for a couple of hours and that sweet little girl sat at the bar with me and "colored" for almost an hour! She really liked my lion, birds, and flowers and wanted to take it home so I did two of them. She named the lion Paw Paw Lion and said the two birds were bearbear and Paige! lol What an imagination plus I'm wondering what the psychology is behind that! ha! After we finish an assignment in this book, we are encouraged to "branch out" with other drawings with the same theme on our own.

Here is my second try at a lion. I read that is IS OK to copy other artists for learning purposes only and that professional artists DO copy other artists for learning purposes. When I say copy, I assume you know that I mean look at it and draw, not trace it! So I found this poster that I just loved of a lion and just started to sketch it (if there is such a thing as sketching with a marker) with a black marker. It's not finished but I kind of like it. I have worked in pastels before and I really think this one would be a good candidate for pastels. I can just envision it with the colors and texture, etc. So this may be a work in progress or maybe not. I don't know. Art does take up a lot of time. It's enjoyable but it's time-consuming.

As I was studying in my photography book, I came across this beautiful silouette and thought, you know, I think I could draw that with just two colors of markers. I did draw it freehand. I did not trace it. I didn't get the mouth just right but I got close and worked on that area the most. I was pretty happy with it as a beginner and it's a different style than the others. I guess you could say this is a "cool cat" photographing something - yeah, I know that's corny! For more on cats, please go here to see one of my special cats (audreypawdrey, I linked per your instructions for the first time with this one and that excites me, too, that I've learned to do that - thank you!).

"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great". - Zig Ziglar