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Description
After doing so much painting stuff lately--watercolor, acrylic, water-soluble pencils, etc--I had a bit of a craving to take a break and do something a little more true to form for me, which meant either colored pencils or alcohol markers. I have a new-ish (I've had it for a little over a month but prior to this had only put one drawing in it) sketchbook with really nice, smooth 120 lb. mixed media paper that is great for alcohol markers, and markers are a lot faster to work with, so they won that argument pretty quickly.

I also decided to do something fall-related, since the season soon approaches, and if I'm being totally honest I did think something fall-themed would make a nice addition to my RedBubble shop , too, since I've been trying to pay more attention to that aspect of my art networking lately.

Naturally, I thought of three things that are kind of "Generic Fall" things: Pumpkins, leaves, and black cats. Which almost immediately led me to a black cat on a pumpkin with leaves, and after a few minutes perusing Pinterest for a little extra inspiration, I had more or less solidified the idea of what I wanted to do in my head.

I've drawn cats before on a few occasions, but for someone who loves cats as much as I do, I don't draw them very often because I always feel like I'm missing something in the stylization. Which probably means I need to draw them more often, not less, but I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that this time I looked around, again on Pinterest, and tried to look at how I was drawing the kitty from a fresh angle and not rely on my old habits. And this I think worked out pretty good in the end.

There's something about the face on this one that I'm a lot more comfortable with than my past attempts and I think the overall look is just cuter and nicer on the eyes.

The kitty also ended up being a minimally shaded dark gray because I was trying to keep the fur from totally blending in with the outlines, and then I kinda messed up the shading on the face so I had to go back and layer it up more than I wanted to in order to blend out the kinks. I did end up going back and outlining the mouth with my white gel pen, just because it was so hard to see in-person. Otherwise, for once I tried to avoid using my gel pens and wanted to really let the markers have a chance in the spotlight by themselves.

I had a little trouble figuring out what to do with the kitty's scarf, both in terms of how the tails were placed and in balancing the reddish color out, and it's still not totally perfect in either department, but it works well enough for what I had in mind.

The pumpkin was actually the easier part, both coloring, and drawing. I did have a few mishaps while I was inking the whole thing though and that would be why some of the lines on the pumpkin, in particular, are obnoxiously thick, and that would also be why those three swirly-vine bits are there; they're hiding little ink "tails" that I could not reasonably thicken the lines to cover and had no other ideas on how to fix. (Although they didn't turn out perfectly either, the end result still works.)

The leaves also had a few different interactions in terms of the way some of them were facing, if some of them existed in the picture at all, and slight placement differences, but for the most part they stayed the same between the sketch and the final version. I did end up adding most of the green ones in after the fact because I felt like that extra pop of color was really needed to relax all the warm colors, and I added the yellow on up the side of the pumpkin specifically to further hide a mishap with one of those swirly-vine-things, and then it's green counterpart on the other side was mostly for balance's sake after that. But the leaf on kitty's tail was planned from the very beginning.

Once everything else was pretty much done (I did go back and touch up a few areas color-wise later) I added a bit of a fading shadow under everything, as a little bit of grounding. Originally--back while I was still sketching--I had considered adding a moon and doing a dark blue/purple sky behind the cat, but still leaving everything with the regular simply colors, since nights and full moons are often associated with fall too, but I ultimately decided against that, at least for now (I can always do an alternate version later, especially if I decide to go digital with it) and I'm glad I did; I think there just would've been too many dark tones unless I outlined the kitty in white gel pen, but then I wouldn't've known which out parts of this foreground stuff should be included or not.

I did end up going back with my Copic colorless blender and softening/pulling up some of that shadow a bit to make it more subtle, and if I haven't mentioned it before, I think this is one of the "better," "more proper" ways to use colorless blender alcohol markers. I usually have issues with harsh "water"/liquid lines if I try to use them more as the name implies if I'm not careful, and it ends up being more of a pain to try and use it to blend than it is to just leave well enough alone. But generally speaking, I find that the blenders work pretty well for effects like this with more room for forgiveness if it's not quite right on the first pass.

Overall, I think it turned out quite cute, and I liked it well enough that I do have another fall-ish kitty piece in the works, as a sort of companion to this one. Hopefully, that one will be going up as my next piece, but we'll see how the next couple days go and if that changes anything

Sometimes it's good to go back to something you're more familiar with when you're in the thralls of experimentation with new things (not really new things but things you haven't played with much), and I think this little refresher is already proving to be beneficial for me. That said, unless something changes, once my next kitty is done I'll probably be back on the watercolor/paint train for a little while. I keep watching paint videos and naturally I am compelled to join in the painting fun afterward.

Also, I've had the itch of purchasing some new supplies to try starting up in my brain again, and it's actually been here for a little while, but I've yet to decide what to grab to satisfy that itch, as there are quite a few choices on my art shopping list So it may still be here, unsatisfied for a while longer while I try to nail down what to do with it. But rest assured you guys will probably be some of the first to know what ends up happening on that front.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

Description
After doing so much painting stuff lately--watercolor, acrylic, water-soluble pencils, etc--I had a bit of a craving to take a break and do something a little more true to form for me, which meant either colored pencils or alcohol markers. I have a new-ish (I've had it for a little over a month but prior to this had only put one drawing in it) sketchbook with really nice, smooth 120 lb. mixed media paper that is great for alcohol markers, and markers are a lot faster to work with, so they won that argument pretty quickly.

I also decided to do something fall-related, since the season soon approaches, and if I'm being totally honest I did think something fall-themed would make a nice addition to my RedBubble shop , too, since I've been trying to pay more attention to that aspect of my art networking lately.

Naturally, I thought of three things that are kind of "Generic Fall" things: Pumpkins, leaves, and black cats. Which almost immediately led me to a black cat on a pumpkin with leaves, and after a few minutes perusing Pinterest for a little extra inspiration, I had more or less solidified the idea of what I wanted to do in my head.

I've drawn cats before on a few occasions, but for someone who loves cats as much as I do, I don't draw them very often because I always feel like I'm missing something in the stylization. Which probably means I need to draw them more often, not less, but I digress. The point I'm trying to make is that this time I looked around, again on Pinterest, and tried to look at how I was drawing the kitty from a fresh angle and not rely on my old habits. And this I think worked out pretty good in the end.

There's something about the face on this one that I'm a lot more comfortable with than my past attempts and I think the overall look is just cuter and nicer on the eyes.

The kitty also ended up being a minimally shaded dark gray because I was trying to keep the fur from totally blending in with the outlines, and then I kinda messed up the shading on the face so I had to go back and layer it up more than I wanted to in order to blend out the kinks. I did end up going back and outlining the mouth with my white gel pen, just because it was so hard to see in-person. Otherwise, for once I tried to avoid using my gel pens and wanted to really let the markers have a chance in the spotlight by themselves.

I had a little trouble figuring out what to do with the kitty's scarf, both in terms of how the tails were placed and in balancing the reddish color out, and it's still not totally perfect in either department, but it works well enough for what I had in mind.

The pumpkin was actually the easier part, both coloring, and drawing. I did have a few mishaps while I was inking the whole thing though and that would be why some of the lines on the pumpkin, in particular, are obnoxiously thick, and that would also be why those three swirly-vine bits are there; they're hiding little ink "tails" that I could not reasonably thicken the lines to cover and had no other ideas on how to fix. (Although they didn't turn out perfectly either, the end result still works.)

The leaves also had a few different interactions in terms of the way some of them were facing, if some of them existed in the picture at all, and slight placement differences, but for the most part they stayed the same between the sketch and the final version. I did end up adding most of the green ones in after the fact because I felt like that extra pop of color was really needed to relax all the warm colors, and I added the yellow on up the side of the pumpkin specifically to further hide a mishap with one of those swirly-vine-things, and then it's green counterpart on the other side was mostly for balance's sake after that. But the leaf on kitty's tail was planned from the very beginning.

Once everything else was pretty much done (I did go back and touch up a few areas color-wise later) I added a bit of a fading shadow under everything, as a little bit of grounding. Originally--back while I was still sketching--I had considered adding a moon and doing a dark blue/purple sky behind the cat, but still leaving everything with the regular simply colors, since nights and full moons are often associated with fall too, but I ultimately decided against that, at least for now (I can always do an alternate version later, especially if I decide to go digital with it) and I'm glad I did; I think there just would've been too many dark tones unless I outlined the kitty in white gel pen, but then I wouldn't've known which out parts of this foreground stuff should be included or not.

I did end up going back with my Copic colorless blender and softening/pulling up some of that shadow a bit to make it more subtle, and if I haven't mentioned it before, I think this is one of the "better," "more proper" ways to use colorless blender alcohol markers. I usually have issues with harsh "water"/liquid lines if I try to use them more as the name implies if I'm not careful, and it ends up being more of a pain to try and use it to blend than it is to just leave well enough alone. But generally speaking, I find that the blenders work pretty well for effects like this with more room for forgiveness if it's not quite right on the first pass.

Overall, I think it turned out quite cute, and I liked it well enough that I do have another fall-ish kitty piece in the works, as a sort of companion to this one. Hopefully, that one will be going up as my next piece, but we'll see how the next couple days go and if that changes anything

Sometimes it's good to go back to something you're more familiar with when you're in the thralls of experimentation with new things (not really new things but things you haven't played with much), and I think this little refresher is already proving to be beneficial for me. That said, unless something changes, once my next kitty is done I'll probably be back on the watercolor/paint train for a little while. I keep watching paint videos and naturally I am compelled to join in the painting fun afterward.

Also, I've had the itch of purchasing some new supplies to try starting up in my brain again, and it's actually been here for a little while, but I've yet to decide what to grab to satisfy that itch, as there are quite a few choices on my art shopping list So it may still be here, unsatisfied for a while longer while I try to nail down what to do with it. But rest assured you guys will probably be some of the first to know what ends up happening on that front.

Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings

Where to find me & my artwork:
My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram