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robertsloan2 — Portrait of a Siamese
Published: 2007-10-09 22:58:07 +0000 UTC; Views: 2345; Favourites: 44; Downloads: 40
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Description
7" x 10" Colored Conte Crayons on "Oyster" Canson mi-Tientes paper, smooth side.Prototype for How to Draw a Siamese Cat Portrait in colored Conte crayon. I labeled this project as "Moderate" instead of "Moderately Challenging" or "Challenging" because it uses tinted paper and in the article I suggested tracing and transferring the cat photo. Photo reference is "Blue Eyes," a portrait I did of Ari some time back. He's so beautiful. I love drawing my cat.
At last, I drew him in some detail in a nice portrait, as I've meant to for some time.
Click on my article and let me know if it's helpful.
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Comments: 59
Wow, thank you! Yes, it's been a long hard road to get here, and my life now is better than it has ever been. I am IN the best time in my life right now, which stuns me daily. LOL -- yep, Kitten has had her disagreements with my cat. And it's taken her a long time to earn his trust. Her wonderful husband, my loved son-in-law ~HeraldoftheAbyss , had an easier time with Ari, who likes him and gives him a cuddle once in a while. Ari has been very gentle with the children, though he stays away from them.
And he has finally been getting over his dog phobia and made an exception for Zoe, Kitten's siberian Husky. We are both amazed at how well behaved Zoe is. Kitten and Ari both put in a lot of time training her from the time she was a ten week old puppy smaller than Ari, and now that she's a full sized year-old husky, she is impeccably well behaved. If I approach her, she will wag her tail and sit down to be petted, not jump all over me. She looks up with big pale blue eyes and adores me. She's friendly and sweet and I've overcome my phobia too where she's concerned, the sight of that black and white dog gives me a deep feeling of security.
Thank you so much. It's been rough, but I think the part that makes good reading is over and I'm happily in the pleasant lull where I get to write past adventures instead of new ones shoving themselves up my nose all the time.
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I have featured this wonderful work in my journal. Hope that's ok. If not, just let me know ...
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Wow, thank you! Much appreciated! Ari Cat purrs at you for it (he loves having more Internet presence!)
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He is so fluffy
I like the seperate hairs very much.
But the right eye looks a little bit deformed - I think it would be better, when the nose would be more straight and the eye is a little bit more hidden and at the right eyeline it could be a little bit rounder.
Ah and in the ear shades could go a little bit darker.
I love the original photo - can I use it as a reference?
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Thank you! Sure, go ahead and use the original photo for a reference. I love seeing other people draw my cat. Please note me when you post it so I can see it too!
I did a lot of guesswork on the shaded eye, and I guess you can tell.
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You're very welcome ^-^ Thank you! I will do that and I think, I will also make WIP's too - I will note you when I have uploaded it at my new fanartaccount.
Can't all artists tell that?
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Hehe oh yeah. Probably as long as they notice it. I am so looking forward to your version of Ari!
Pretty cat nose on your icon.
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Hehe, yes that are true words!
Yes, I have started the image, it will take it's time, but I am optimistic
Thank you, but you have also a new one, or?
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No, I still have only one cat, my Ari is seven years old and we are very close. I just like your icon. Oh, if you mean new icon, yeah, I reduced the Indigo Bunting piece to use it for an icon because it was square and I thought it'd look cool.
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Haha, I meant the icon of yourse
I know that you have only your Ari. He is in a good age, I wish you he will get very old.
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Right, I don't know what I was thinking. He's young, he's only seven. I hope he has great longevity genes. Siamese get darker as they get older and the middle of his back is approaching light brown, but I have seen older ones that got almost black in their bodies while their masks did turn jet black. He still has a paler fluffy tummy. When he was a kitten his body was creamy ivory.
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I hope it too for you. My cat before, "Bobby", was 17 until she died... I bet she would have been older now, if she wouldn't have been ill ....
Really? Wow, I didn't know that - normally they get lighter, so that sounds just amazing that they get darker!
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Yep. I didn't believe it in my twenties but I met a friend with two very old Siamese, one was fifteen and the other eighteen -- and they were very dark brown, fat, happy cats still with bright blue eyes. Ari is darkening like the adult he is, and will get darker and darker as he gets older. It's neat.
17 is a very old age for a cat, but Bobby might have lived longer. I've seen cats over 20 many times in my life and once, just once, met a gray longhair who was 28. She could barely move for her arthritis but her people put a heating pad on the wide rail of a staircase well where she had a commanding view of everyone coming in the house or going from room to room -- and if anyone touched her, she just melted into a purr. She was so sweet and sociable. She had trouble getting up there on her own so she'd mew to be lifted down to go to her litterpan and mew to be put back up on her ledge with her heating pad, and not one person in that house minded being the cat porter.
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Wow! Such a beautiful peace. I may have to try out that tutorial for this drawing. I suck at animals and I want to get better at drawing them. This could really help me!
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Hope so! It took me a long time to get around to drawing him this large and realistic, even though I love him so much. Just procrastinated because I had to get him exactly right and recognizable.
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Mr. Air Fluff is too hairy to be a real purebred Siamese. Short sleek hair on the real thing. 
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hehehe yeah, and on top of it he's an applehead. But he is gorgeous and I call him a street Siamese. Close enough. Cat fanciers understand "colourpoint longhair" but that doesn't quite have the ring of "Siamese sidekick" and "Street Siamese."
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Ah, I'm of the old school. I don't really consider any but the appleheads real Siamese. The caricature of the Siamese they call Siamese today is a needle nosed bat eared rat faced skinny fine boned imitation of the real thing. Our own family imports from Siam were definitely appleheads. I can't imagine the caricature guarding a temple. I can an applehead.
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That's cool. Hehehe it reminds me of Get Fuzzy. the point where Bucky claims he's descended from the royalty of Siam.
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It was just one strip in Get Fuzzy. Bucky got all fired up about being lost royalty and descended from royal cats in Siam, so Rob comes back at him with something about his being the secret descendant of kings in Thailand and hiding lest they murder him and Bucky bought it even though Rob was teasing. Kinda sweet actually. It was in one of the two collections I have.
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Thank you! This is one that I'm keeping. He's curled up in Kitten's chair and looking down from the wall twice, that is so cool -- same wall as I have the trade portrait of Ari up on.
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WOW...this is SUCH a treat to see! Ari really does seem to have a very gentle expression here--and such bright, compelling eyes!!
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Thank you! Yes, he did when I snapped the photo -- the reference for this was "Blue Eye" which is up in my gallery.
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Yya! Siamese! Me lovers the breed Siamese. I lovers your art os them too! *wants to hug the cat* =^.^=
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Awww thank you! Ari purrs at you. He loves the attention and I tell him when he gets comments about how cute and cool he is. He's very cuddly and fluffy. At least, he's cuddly with me. Kitten says he's a Siamese crossed with a chainsaw. lol
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Ari is a lovely cat!! do you know the deviant ? I think a lot of people there would love your cat too
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I've seen that club occasionally! But I belong to a whole lot of clubs and don't post many photos compared to artworks. Thanks for mentioning them!
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Dad, this is a wonderful portrait of Ari, it really is. I do like your cat, and I like him even better when he's on paper.
Everybody else- Yes, Ari is a sweet cat. To Dad. He's a wonderful buddy. To Dad. To the rest of us he's a Siamese crossed with a chainsaw who took Bucky from Get Fuzzy as a role model long ago. I've spent four years of my life trying to make friends with that cat, and only recently has he decided to occasionally let me scritch his head. At first I was offended by this, as most cats, dogs, ferrets, children, horses, etc. like me on sight. However, I understand that Ari has been seriously traumatized by people other than Dad in his past, and Ari's idea of liking me was just scratching me normally, instead of immediately putting a two inch deep gash in my arm. Fortunately, he's a really good judge of character when it comes to that sort of thing. He's a beautiful cat, and he's very much DAD's cat. Funny though, the rare occasions he comes up and asks me for a scritch seem to mean more than the number of laprugs I've had purring for hours on end.
Kitten42
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LOL -- good description of Ari. And he does come up and occasionally get friendly with you now, lets you pet him sometimes and purrs. He's just hard to get. Irresistibly hard to get.
He was all over me last night with the snuggling and purring and wanting much luvs because I went to sleep too late the night before to give him proper solace for being away from him all day.
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This is great Robert. What an expressive portrait of your best buddy.
Love the eyes, and the angle of the viewpoint.
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Thank you! Coming from you this means so much. He's sleeping right next to me in the other chair right now.
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give him a rub under the chin from me when you get the chance.
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Will do! He's been real snuggly and purry lately. It's so great. Hee hee, sometimes he'll walk up onto the book I'm reading or into my lap while typing and interrupt for luvs.
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Awwww, sweet Ari ... love the way his eyes stand out! ~E.
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Thank you! Whee, he's gotten 9 favourites so far. My boy is so photogenic and gorgeous. Everyone I know online loves Ari. It's those sweet blue eyes. He's such a charmer.
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Absolutely beautiful!
P.S. Here's a cheap tabletop tripod - under $2!
[link] 
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You angel. Thank you! I didn't realize there were tripods that cheap. Sure, I'd like to get the fancy freestanding one from Blick with the high price and the fitting that goes with a thumbox or a watercolor thingy -- but this will let me do art photography if I set it up on the cart and set the art up on the easel and roll the cart away and turn the easel. BIG art photography. Plus various still life objects for drawing.
Whoohoo! I may be using this more than a big one because it's so compact and handy, it could fit right onto my endtable when it's in use. That's brilliant.
I had no idea there were any useful tripods that price range. The absolute lowest I'd seen was $35.
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I know you've been wanting to do a detailed Ari portrait for a long time! 
One detail I'm loving are the lines on his forehead, at the top of his mask. It's a typical cat trait whether visible in the coat pattern or not, yet many people fail to depict it in cat artwork. So it's wonderful seeing it here. Same with the details inside the ear!
Not to mention, Ari's a cutie. 
The only thing that bothers me about the image is the visible mark-off lines around the edges. It would look better if they were cropped out or erased. Minor detail, really, but I did notice it.
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Thank you! Yeah, the little lines on his forehead are part of many pointed cats' masks. There's tabby markings under the mask. When he was tiny he had a big tabby mask and a little teeny black mask on over it, that was so cute. He was the only Siamese kitten with a double mask I'd ever seen. His mommy was a lynx point long hair, beautiful pale lilac-gray tabby points and delicately barred legs and tail. His daddy was "A big black cat." He had black ears from the time he was a baby kitten and it confused me because his mom was so light. I'd met his mom and always liked her.
Thank you so much! Sorry about the visible mark-off lines. I guess I could have moved the scan in just a hair more, when I lined it up. They're visible in the mat too so posting the matted version wouldn't get rid of them.
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I love the sheen on his fur. It looks so soft and silky... the color of the paper accents him really well, too.
Great article, by the way. ^^
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Thank you! It's lots easier drawing anyone or any animal on tinted paper. The paper helps, and then you don't have to do any background at all unless you want to. Or if you do it can be a really sketchy loose one.
I always liked how the light and white marks looked on toned paper, somehow it seems to make the drawing look more real.
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