Friday, June 01, 2007

The Suspense of Waiting

"Drunk on His Own Sense of Power" ACEO can be bid on here.
Copyright Rita Woodburne


It’s Friday! You know what that means, don’t you? No? Neither do I...I work 7 days a week so Friday just means that the Other Half is at home for 2 days and I can shirk some of my chores onto him. :D

So for today I decided that I’d do another WIP of an ACEO of Bill. I have a whole slew of pics of him behaving in a most un-cat like manner (as can be seen in the ACEO above) so I’ve got to use them somewhere. The reference for this ACEO was taken back in the winter and at the time I was actually trying to get a pic of one of the horses. Bill, upon seeing the camera, must have assumed that naturally I was trying to get his picture and proceeded to stick his mug directly in front of the camera resulting in this particular shot. It’s an odd angle/ perspective and I think that’s what drew me to it and also because Bill is, well, odd. An odd angle for an odd cat...how appropriate.

So, without further ado let’s get to it:


This is the first stage of my line drawing. Again, I feel compelled to mention that I just throw in a loose line drawing to give me a guideline of markings and get my proportions right. I like to fill in/ make up the details as I go. It’s my own personal feeling that no matter how good the colours and persnickety details are it’ll just look plain awful if the proportions are off. To each his/ her own.


Above I’ve gone and marked in my main darks and lights with Black and Cream (the whiskers are in White). I don’t indent my whisker spaces because I don’t really own anything that will allow me to do that without ruining the paper. One day I’ll buy some toothpicks or something so I can indent them.
I’ve also added in some colour such as blocking in his eyes with Limepeel and his nose with Nectar (one of the brand spanking new colours from Prismacolour, or I could’ve also used Peach). In addition I’ve added in Yellow Ochre on his nose and gone over the edges of the highlights with Jasmine. The rest of the areas that have been blocked in are done in Bronze with touches of Sepia here and there.

I’m going to leave it at that today. I know, I’m leaving you in the lurch but think of it like a cliff-hanger: Will I complete it? Will it blow off my desk unsuspectingly and land in a puddle (why I would have a puddle in my studio is beyond me??) Will Bill himself, while in a catnip induced spazz attack, come and chew it to pieces? Who can say? So, tune in on Monday when the fate of Bill’s ACEO will be decided!

4 comments:

mrana said...

Wonderful! I love the progress reports and will definitely be tuning in on Monday! And "drunk on his sense of power" is gorgeous!

Rita said...

Thanks mrana!
I like posting Works In Progress because it's a way for me to "think out loud" and if it's entertaining or of use to somebody else, so much the better!

Jennifer Rose said...

Is Bill of legal age to drink??
*rolls eyes*

Another nice ACEO WIP :)

Rita said...

Thanks Jennifer, I'm hopelessly addicted to ACEO's so it work well for me!
No, Bill isn't of age but we always tell him that under no circumstances is he to operate a motor vehicle after drinking. If he needs to drive somewhere we give him money for a cab.