Drawing a Cat in Pen and Ink
One year ago I decided to do something that I've never done before, and that was a daily drawing challenge. I've always loved drawing cats, and have a lot of my own reference photos from my cat and friends' cats, so I decided to choose them as my subject and further explore how to draw a cat through this daily practice. For 30 days in January/February I drew one drawing of a cat each day and posted each drawing to Instagram. Most were from photos I took myself, but some were from photos friends' shared with me of their cats, and some were from cats I found on Instagram. These original drawings are for sale and can be purchased HERE.
A morning cup of tea, with an ink bottle, vintage nib pen and a special edition rose chocolate bar by Valerie Confections in collaboration with Edible Gardens LA. photo by Brianna Lamar
The drawings were executed in graphite pencil, charcoal pencil, watercolor brush pen, and pen and ink. Although I have worked a lot in ink, and it's one of my favorite mediums, I have mostly worked abstractly with the ink nib pen. It was fun to try out this medium to render a more realistic drawing utilizing some crosshatching techniques. Since it is a bit of a different process than drawing in pencil, I thought I'd share with you the basic steps I took to approach a pen and ink drawing of a cat....for the curious cats out there ;)