Just a quick little doodle for Illustration Friday. I had a great many ideas for treatment of the word ‘heights’, but this was the quickest one to draw.

Seems like I haven’t posted any cat sketches in a while. Here are some cat sketches.

I am the go-to person for cat sketches.

This is a sulky ginger cat I happen to know. The yellow line at the top may or may not be my homage to Rothko.

” It is raining in Paris, or at least in that part of le douzième arrondissement which contains the Holiday Inn Paris Bastille. Presumably it also rains on the sex shop (‘SEX SHOP’) next door, though I haven’t checked. The rain provides un bon atmosphère and has helped to disperse the faint smell of sewage that was in my room when I got back today.

” The bathtub makes a belching noise. I have just washed my hair and piled it atop my head. Today was eventful. I walked first to the Marché d’Aligre, in search of patisserie; the market was full of vegetables which in retrospect I perhaps should have bought. There was a stall with a vast mound of mint leaves and you could smell it, clean and bright, walking past.

” Some streets away from the market I eventually found Square Trousseau, as quaint as its name sounds and surrounded by discreet, interesting shops. At Blé Sucré I purchased un pain aux amandes and un cafe, which despite not being ‘au lait’ was actually terribly nice. It had a toffee-ish taste, was not bitter, and the crema (bubbles) made up for the lack of creme. These things I consumed outside; it wasn’t raining then.

” In the square I sat on a tree-shaded bench and watched children climbing what I’m sure was a clever, diminutive reference to the Louvre Pyramid. There, postcards were written. ”

(Eagle-eyed readers will note that the photos are not of what is written about in the text, but I find cameras get in the way of enjoying your breakfast. They also function far less satisfactorily with buttery pastry stuck to the lens).

In September I went to Paris, alone, and endeavoured to experience some culture (and some pastries). The Musée d’Orsay was high on my list of things to see, since it contains the work of some artists I rather like but don’t know a lot about, and used to be a train station (giving me the opportunity to send my train-loving father this postcard).
In a manic evening of web-browsing on the night before I left, I discovered that if you are under 26 and live in an European Union country, you can get in for free. And so I did.

The museum itself has been converted in a really interesting way, and is full of the kind of artworks you see reproduced so regularly that it’s difficult to believe they even exist in an original, concrete form.

I enjoyed sketching Degas’ little statues of ballet dancers. They were on glass shelves, so you were looking at the higher-placed dancers from below. Some of them had surprisingly chunky limbs.

Fun fact: people visiting art galleries have an overwhelmingly positive attitude to other people visiting art galleries who happen to be sketching. I got complimented in various different languages, even when I was hideously disfiguring Sarah Bernhardt! I didn’t scan that one; be assured that it is not a flattering portrayal…

In line with the usual content of this blog, I did see and draw some interesting teapots, and also discovered an unusual object which will be very helpful in a certain witch-related illustration project I have in mind. That will take some explaining, so it can wait for another post!

For Christmas I received a pocket waterbrush, and all manner of watercolour cat sketches ensued.
You can tell these are drawn from real cats since a cat hair seems to have made its way into my scanner, too.

One of these cats (the red one) has just thrown up on the upstairs landing and is now trying to eat my bootlace. Even muses have their quirks.

Poking around behind-the-scenes of the blog at the moment so actual posting is (you can probably see) thin on the ground. Also resolved to stop using my scanner as a useful table for dumping documents on, so I’m not tempted just to take poor webcam snapshots of my sketchbooks (see above) in lieu of actually scanning them in. We’ll see how that goes…

On a much more positive note, I have finally acquired (and legitimately, I might add!) a copy of Photoshop, complete with student discount courtesy of my Life Drawing course. And once I have time to dedicate to installing and playing with it, I guess it will be pretty useful. At the moment it is just sat atop my printer, looking decorative and excessively packaged in its large box.

Jake passed away a year ago today. I like to imagine that he’s currently sat in some other realm with all the great cats of history, who now spend their time spectrally grooming and surveying each other with thinly veiled disdain.

* The title of this post is completely unrelated to anything within, think that’s something I need to work on…

I doodled this witch and she appeared to be sat on (or maybe climbing over) something, so I added a fibreglass lion. There were a lot of those in Bournemouth at the time I sketched this, so it seemed reasonable.

Inspiration for this particular witch’s wardrobe comes courtesy of The Witches’ Handbook by Malcolm Bird, possibly the greatest work of instructional literature ever published.

In my next post: a wardrobe. (Or: not).

Above: sketch book page from a trip to Winchester. Cathedrals: they don’t move around much, which is good, but nevertheless they take quite a bit of patience to draw accurately. Or rather, I assume they would. I went for the quick and sketchy option.

Hidden somewhere on this page is some most excellent faux-Medieval (…probably?) typography from a pub sign.

Watercolour sketch of Charlie the cat.