Mood:
celebratoryI can not draw cats. I can not paint cats. I can draw and paint almost anything else. Dogs, rabbits, planes, trains, plants, fungus, people, you name it I can draw and paint it. I can even paint lions, tigers and lynxes, just not their domesticated cousins. my style of drawing and painting (not fashion sketching that's a different animal) often falls into the "magic Realism" style where a thing is so finely detailed it looks more real than the real thing. This is not to be confused with classic "Photo-Realism" where a painting is done to closely resemble a photograph.
Cats have always been a weak spot in my artistic skill set. They always end up looking terrible. I think it's because I don't "see" cats; I feel them. They are not object to draw and paint, they are creatures with personalities. Yet, when drawn and painted the character never comes through, they look like characterless generic cats.
So I was quite surprised on Saturday when a cat based inspiration struck. Inspiration can strike in many ways. Sometimes it is a light tap on the shoulder saying, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we tried..." and sometimes it's a slug across the back saying "WOW! I just thought of something completely new I wonder if it work in I did this..." and rarely it is a full on body slam that says"HOLY FARK! I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT BEFORE NOR LOOKED AT IT FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE!" "THIS IS A REVELATION!!!!11!"
Yes, sometime inspiration shouts in all caps like Obvious Troll on the internet. Ad sometimes, after a long day filled with chores, you don't want any shouting or body slams. Like Saturday, which was quite busy all day with housekeeping chores, scraping lime scale off the shower, vacuuming the carpet on the stairs, sweeping the hall...boring stuff. To be fair, it is rewarding work. by four o'clock the basement bathroom is sparkling clean, the carpet looks almost new, and there aren't hairballs in the corners.
Bear with me, it will all make sense. So after a full day of chores I sat down to watch a little Project Runway. As always the cats hop up beside me. Lucky sits on my lap and Trixie sits beside me with her back to my leg and her belly exposed for any tummy rubs that might come her way.
So I sat there petting lucky and listening to him purr. I could feel the lines of muscle and sinew, the contours of his legs and paws and head and tail and how the curves of the muscles lined up with the curves of his body
And then INSPIRATION HIT! I could draw those lines, contours and curves. And they could all fit together in sinuous lines. And for the first time I could DRAW A CAT.
I got out my pencils and some sketch paper, three holed lined stuff that's really cheap and cheerful, got a lap desk and sat to scribble in front of the television (Gordana wuz ROBBED! ROBBED I tell ya!) After a few tries I had my cat. I went to the table where I brought out my good paper and art supplies and refined the drawing. I thin tried making it larger. Smaller. Square. Really big. Outlined. Coloured. solid black. I was quite pleased with the cat picture and went to do something else. I left it out and as Dave passed he said "That's a really good cat drawing. You should make it your new logo." Which is what I was hoping to use it for. I was very happy Dave could see it as a logo without any prompting from me. My semi-nefarious plan worked.
So I now have a really nice cat graphic scanned into the computer. I can manipulate however i want. It can be made bigger, smaller, favicon size, embroidered and woven into a label, silk screened on a shirt, and turned into a web banner. It can be further simplified or it can have additional details. It will fit well with my name and label, either lincatz or Linda S. It isn't overly cute, cloying, little girly-girl, or complex. it's a good all purpose graphic that will make super logo. Now I am looking around to see if it looks like any other cat graphics. Then I have several options.
No, you can not see it yet, not until I make sure it's not like any other logos. Then I can make it mine and then I can put it on the website.
Sometimes Inspiration is like that. Usually inspiration is like "Wouldn't it be cool if we tried" and then it suggests something flammable, potentially mutilating, or impossible.
I'm not the only one who can't draw cats, there's a whole site devoted to badly drawn cats: http://www.tiddles.co.uk/
