I started with his eye. He was nearly asleep. I was sitting on the conservatory sofa with pen and paper… new (secondhand) rotring pen (as I managed to bust the nib on my lovely old one yesterday) and beautifully smooth Bristol Board. I drew an eye, then the other, then an ear and it grew into a cat.

It’s a ridiculous way of drawing and completely against everything I was taught at college. Measure! Measure! Measure! I think it’s the way children draw, you just start at a point and carry on until you run out of paper. Perhaps there is still a measure of measuring in there.. when you’ve been drawing for so long it becomes second nature. I’m not always conscious I’m doing it, but yes, I do. That corner of the eye lines up with that part of the ear. The space between the paw and the eye is a little longer than that between the eye and the back of the head.

Lately I’ve been picking up a pen and drawing without a proper idea of how it’s going to turn out, without sketching or rubbing out and without worrying about ‘mistakes’. It’s a lovely, relaxed way of sketching and learning to use a new tool. And, I hope, of learning how to overcome the whole getting too uptight to draw thing. 🙂