Pages

Monday, June 22, 2015

Carla Sonheim's cat class


So even though I felt like I was too busy to breathe, I impulsively signed up for this class from Carla Sonheim.

Assignment #2 involved turning blobs of watercolor into cats.
I have become completely obsessed with making these.
Bordering on bat-shit crazy obsessed.
I have given up sleeping in the interest of making more and more blob cats.
When I am forced to do something else, I am drawing cats in my mind.
You may think we're having a conversation.
We're not.
You're talking and I'm drawing cats.
 
I can't even manage to cull my blob collection.
I was only going to show you my favorites.
Apparently I have 33 (out of 35) favorites.
Not only do I keep making more, I keep going back to these and adding a bit more detail.
Some of them really need captions. I can tell I'm not done with this.
Not by a long shot.


































17 comments:

  1. Wow Wow Wow!!! These are great Karen...I love them! They are all so sweet and expressive. You were born to paint these cats.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So freaking awesome! Cute, weird, wonky, but highly artistic! LOVE LOVE LOVE!

    ReplyDelete
  3. So Cool!!!!!!! I almost signed up for this one too...almost...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hahaha! What a lovable collection of characters, I can see how you could be so obsessed!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I LOVE your cats! I signed up for the course, too. Carla is so great! I've done a lot of the sketching assignments but haven't gotten to the blobs yet. Looks like I have some fun in store.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Love your cats!...I'm hooked also.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Ok, 'fess up. After a while, you were makin' blobs with cats in mind, right?? And if you weren't, how can you keep yourself from doing that?
    Regardless, they're very cool. I have her Drawing Lab book. I should prolly go do some of the exercises so I can draw cool cats like you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The tilting-the-card-to-make-drips technique really lends itself to legs and tails. It's easy to find cats and dogs. Harder to find a chicken or a fish.

      I tried to just make roundish puddles and see what happened when I tilted the paper back and forth. After a while the temptation to intentionally manipulate it became strong and I started closing my eyes before I tipped the paper so I would cheat.

      I confess that after "finding" the cat in each piece I might extend or enhance certain areas with more paint, but for the most part they are just the random blobs. And of course you don't see the blobs that no matter how hard I looked just stayed blobs.

      Delete
  8. They are CUTE and should be printed and sold as a set! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  9. These are super-super great, Karen! Really love them. I agree with Iryna above that they would made great card sets!

    ReplyDelete
  10. These are so cute! They're animated when I scroll!!! They'd make fun sweet note cards. :)

    I thought the link on my blog was dead because I haven't seen anything new from you since last year! The last I heard you were going to write letters. No matter, I'm just glad you're back. Good show!

    ReplyDelete
  11. OH. MY. GOD!!! I love, Love, LOVE these!!!! You are one amazing cat-woman, Karen!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I ran across your cats as I googled Carla's class...thinking of taking it myself (I've taken several others and she is wonderful)...your cats are so great!!
    They remind me of some of the poses my own cat makes...haaaa... Keep up the great work!
    Janet

    ReplyDelete