Drawing and Painting Cats

As well as demonstrations, you can see regular updates to the felines I'm drawing and painting, on my blog and website.

Pastelmat
Made by Clairefontaine, acid free, 360 g/m2, available in various colours as single sheets or in pads.
Two sizes of sheet available: 50 x 70cms or 70 x 100cm's.
Can be purchased in the UK from Great Art or Tim Fisher.
I have used both the black and the white.
I found the surface mid way between colourfix and velour, certainly much softer than either the Pastelbord or Fisher 400. It took several layers, you could get a nice sharp line and on the black it was possible to get a really white, white. I have found this difficult on some black surfaces.
I could not get as many layers as on the Arches paper I often use, but this didn't matter to me as the colour saturation was good.
Pastelbord
Made by Ampersand in the USA.
Ampersand Pastelbord is described as "a clay and gesso hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish" The pastelbord is available in four colours, sand, grey, green and white.
I have not found a supplier in the UK, I have had to use mail order from America which makes it expensive.
I ordered samples of all four colours although up to now I have only worked on the sand one. The Ampersand website shows the four colours and gives much more information on the product, including the diversity of media you can use on it.
So far I have used acrylic, coloured pencil and neocolorII.;
This is the hardest of the three surfaces and can be framed without glass.
Again it takes several layers but I found it harder to get the fine lines for my fur than on either of the softer surfaces, it is possible, just harder to do. It is again possible to get white, whites and paint highlights in acrylic if you don't mind mixed media.
The benefit to me of the Pastelbord was framing without glass.
Developed by UK artist Tim Fisher it is a sanded pastel paper.
Supplied by Tim Fisher in the UK, International customers are welcome.
I probably enjoyed working on this surface the best, it almost 'grabbed' the colour, was easy to blend and burnish yet retained sharp edges where I wanted them.

Arches Hot Press Watercolour Paper Wikipedia entry
Arhes Hot Press Watercolour paper is a beautifully smooth heavyweight paper in a creamy white colour. Perfect for fine detail in wet or dry media.
Ampersand Pastelbord,
Pastelbord is a clay and gesso coated hardboard panel with a granular marble dust finish.
Polydraw 75 micron roll
I use Polydraw 75 micron manufactured by West Design which is described as a double matt surface polyester film.
I will provide a link when I find a supplier of the 75 micron pads rather than the roll.
I understand that in countries other than the UK an equivalent product is mylar.

Animal and Wildlife Drawing Forum at Artpapa
This forum is moderated by Mike Sibley probably the UK's most popular graphite canine artist.
Animal and Wildlife Subjects at Wetcanvas

The Society of Feline Artists.
A society founded in 1994 to promote the work of the best feline artists, incuding artists as yet unknown.
The website has examples of members work, a link to their blog and details of the annual exhibition held at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery.

The main UK exhibition featuring domestic cats is the one held by the Society of Feline Artists.
This is an annual exhibition held at the LLewellyn Alexander Gallery in London.
This year it will be held from the 01/09 to the 20/09
The Llewellynn Alexander Gallery
I have exhibited at the last three exhibitions and will be there again in 2010.
The following Exhibitions do not include domestic cats.
National Exhibition of Wildlife Art

Visit my website
Gayle Mason Fine Art
You can see my range of limited edition prints, fine art cards, plus my work in progress.