Cat and Big Cat Sketches

Ari Cat from life and Ocelot face

Tombow dual tip pens on sketch paper 

Tiger skull and snarling face

black Tombow dual tip pen on sketch paper.

Caught up with yesterday's art, actually did four sketches today but not counting ahead. Three are exercises from a book: "How to Draw Animals" series by Franklin Watts UK, volume "Tigers and Other Big Cats." 

The snarling tiger was drawn from an interesting half and half example with a tiger's resting face and snarling face. I tried to mirror the snarling side just by hand, with some success but not well enough to satisfy me. That was surprisingly hard. I'm used to getting good symmetry on things like vases that demand it, but this time I really had a hard time mirroring the expression - and in my mind was also slightly disappointed in the drawing I copied, especially the nose expression and forehead wrinkling that were very simplified. No markings on the tiger in the example either, so I had to add a couple of oversimplified stripes.

Eh, they're just sketches off a book. Some days are about taking it easy and going back to basics - but it's easier to do big cats from a good reference than someone else's drawing! Not so used to copying any more!