A girl and her pencils.....Splodge the cat, part 1

Hello and the happiest of Thursday's to the world. Sometimes you just feel good! Today I feel really good! Never mind that it is 4am, I have a mug of wonderful, strong black coffee and once the exercise etc. is out of the way, a day to spend drawing. I have wanted to draw Splodge for a very long time. He has the most amazing eyes which I really hope I can capture. But I also know he will be a challenge, he is a black and white cat, and in the reference photo both the black and white parts show very little detail. If I did not love his eyes so much I would never have used this photo. But his eyes are like luminous, green marbles with that wonderful cat intensity, and I am a sucker for eyes. Interestingly, to me anyway, one eye is much darker and greener than the other.... dilemma created. Do I make them as they are? Or do I make them the same? I often have this debate. We take photos as truth without question (although we really shouldn't these days), but in art often what would be accepted without question in a photo can appear to be a mistake. If I show the difference in the eyes will it look like I just couldn't match them? I have started work on them as you can see below. At the minute I am leaving them different, although I think the difference is quite subtle in this shot.

Doesn't it look messy too? I have to be really honest with you, at this point I felt a kind of artistic panic hit me. I was not - still am not certain - that I can make this photo look good. I find my confidence is very easily shaken. I began working some of the black fur around the eyes to see if it made me feel better. It made me feel worse! There is no detail in the photo and I feel out of my depth. I nearly binned the piece. I am actually one day behind on my blog, so you will see tomorrow what happened next. Whether he will be finished or not is still it certain, but I think I wanted to share this with you because it is so easy to see what others do and think it is easy for them, or that it always goes well for them, but in reality I think we all have pieces that don't go as we want them to. We need to remember that people only tend to share what they are happy with and the pieces that didn't go so well are put out of sight somewhere to be forgotten about, even by them! I am sure even the great masters must have had a piece or two stuffed behind a cupboard somewhere! So if things go wrong now and again for me as a mere mortal , and new to this stuff as well, it is hardly surprising!
Anyway, today is a new day and I have fresh eyes to assess what I am doing. Enjoy your Thursday wherever you are. And don't let the things that don't quite go as you wanted, artistically or otherwise, knock your confidence. Happy drawing!

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