Do you love cats?  You may not adore cats the way I do, but I am so fond of these creatures that I am constantly creating pieces of art work to celebrate their beauty.  Bobby has been a family cat for over a eleven years, and now more than ever I love to commemorate her life with striking pieces of art work.  Sketching pictures and filling these in with bright pictures is my passion, and one day soon I shall be publishing a book with my own illustrations.  I have always wanted to publish a book actually and I know that I have some great stories to share, but it is just something I have been putting off. When I first started creating this picture it was simply going to be a Halloween bag, but then the holiday passed and I needed to do something with this wonderful illustration.  This idea inspired me to cut the picture out of the bag and to eventually frame it.  Right now the economy is just not that great and I am not ready to plonk down the money needed for a nice frame, but I shall store the picture in a protective place until I can buy one.  The materials that I used for creating this cat illustration were:

• a drawing pencil
• colored pencils
• an eraser
• a picture of Bobby cat
• a brown paper bag
• a bottle of mod podge
• a paint brush

Take a gander at the tutorial below to see how this amazing picture of Bobby cat came to life.

Do you believe in recycling?  If so, decorating paper bags is a great way to reuse items that would just end up in the land fill.  I wrote another article on how to decorate bags for Halloween, but unfortunately the cat bag was not finished on time.  Only later would I find the inspiration to turn Bobby into a picture for my wall, but as I said simply decorating a used paper bag is a very green way to go!  I remember as a child we used to take Stater Brothers paper bags and cut these up to make protective covers for our textbooks.  One of my favorite beginning of the year pictures was to decorate my brown paper bag covers, which were just so much more durable than the pre-made ones they used to hand out to us in class.  Also, one thing I had forgot over the years is that brown paper bags are very forgiving when it comes to erasing and redrawing the lines of your illustration.  As you can see in the picture above Bobby is surrounded by the title Happy Halloween, but in the following steps I will show you how I cover up those words.

As I am coloring in Bobby's head I make sure to pay attention to detail by staying in the lines.  One of my favorite things about the drawing process is the ability to fill in the sketch with vibrant colors.

During this phase of the process I used the white colored pencil to fill in the light portions of Bobby cat, such as the stripe on her nose and her whiskers.  Bobby is a tuxedo cat, so I always feel like she is getting ready to a black tie event as I bring her to life with my illustrations.  Yes Bobby is a real cat, and as you can see from the picture above she is a very docile one at that!  Bobby prefers to stay in the house and really does not like to cat around outside.

During this step in the process I used the black colored pencil to shade in the lower portion of Bobby's body.  I shaded more darkly to create the shadowy effects on certain portions of my cat's body, and I must say I look forward to practice I will obtain from future drawing.  Some how sketching is like a dialogue where you learn new things and begin to see the world in a thousand new ways.  All of a sudden little details you never noticed before come into view!

One of my favorite parts of shading in the black portion of Bobby cat is the contrast with the white fur.  I also loved blending the black colored pencil in between the whiskers to thin these out, and to make these hairs look more realistic. 

Here I used the white colored pencil to finish filling in the belly area of Bobby cat.  Now my beautiful manx tuxedo cat is ready to go to the evening soiree, so I better create the appropriate background.

Yes the original picture of Bobby cat did not have a picture window directly behind her, but in my drawings I often like to deviate from the photograph.  At first the Bobby scene was going to be taking place on Halloween night, but in my procrastination I did not finish the trick-or-treat bag on time.  To be honest I am super happy I deferred the drawing because I was able to turn it into a picture for my wall.  The first step in covering up the Halloween slogan was to color in the windowsill, and then to focus on coloring in the sky and her blanket.

In this step I used a dark colored pencil to fill in the void of the night sky.  I love shading, and it is quite relaxing actually.  The moon remained an empty brown circle on the bag until after I filled in the color of the blanket Bobby was sitting on.

Here I used a fuchsia colored pencil to color in the blanket of Bobby cat.  The blanket in the actually picture was about the same color, so this detail pretty much stayed the same in the illustration.  I made several folds in the blanket by shading these regions more darkly, which was very soothing.  I am not sure what it is about shading, but pressing down on the pencil is just so therapeutic.  

First I shaded the moon in with a gray colored pencil, and then I emphasized the brighter parts of the moon with a white colored pencil.  The blending of these two colors created a very realistic moon!

Since this was no longer going to be a Halloween bag I used the scissors to cut the picture out.  Next, it was time for me to mod podge my drawing, which would give it a cool paint like effect.

Paint mod podge over the cat drawing and allow it to draw.  I usually allow the mod podge to dry over night, and by morning it has sealed the drawing.  I love the glossy brush stroked effect that I achieve with mod podge, and I often use this technique with my drawing.  I plan on framing this cute cat drawing and putting it on my wall.