My first kitty!

[Doobi]

Hi all,

This is my first painting in soft pastel. This is also my first post in this forum. Usually I post in the oil pastel forum.

I am very new to soft pastel. So please give me some suggestions.

Thx alot!

Cheers,
Doobi

[ncgirl]

What a cute kitty! He looks like he's ready to come down from the tree!

I'm no expert, but will give a suggestion for you. When drawing any kind of animal, it's very tempting to try to draw every hair, but it isn't necessary. In reality, we don't even see in that great a detail (we think we do. ) So, what I tend to do is detail the fur on a kitty in places where it's very noticable - right below the ears, inside the ears, above the eyes, and wherever the light is hitting the strongest (usually one side of kitty's face). The rest is scrambled in with random stroke lengths to simulate the mass of color our eyes are perceiving.

Try smooth strokes in the direction that the fur is growing. Thanks for sharing! Look forward to seeing more of your soft pastel work!

[Dea]

Ahh cute!
I'm not sure how oil pastels work but with soft pastels it is easy to put light over dark (like oil paints) you'll find you can get more depth that way.
I like the looseness you have and your use of colour,
Deanna

[jackiesimmonds]

Can I suggest you look at the thread in this forum entitled "Stuck". In it, Don shows how to "posterize" the photo so that you get a simplified set of tones which better describe the form of a cat.

And I have to say.....this is one scary cat...... Just look at those CLAWS!!! Is it yours? I'd be very nervous around this puss.