Exercise 1 Animal line study

This exercise is both easy and difficult. I draw animals, I have sketchbooks full of animal studies. One of my reasons for doing this course was to expand my horizons and do things differently but animal studies is more of the same and I need to work hard not to churn out what I always draw.
I chose to do cats, because I don't think I do them very well and they were often badly done in the websites I looked at for my research. Conveniently I have 3 models here at home to study. Here are some pages from my sketchbooks.

 Fineliner and coloured pencil

 Pencil and fineliner

Pencil and fineliner

To mix things up a bit I used some sheets of A3 paper and graphite sticks, Aquatone pencils or Tombow markers. This is what I would use in a life drawing session and I wanted to channel some of that style and energy into my home studies. Pencil and A4 paper can be a bit tight and restricting.

Inspired by the watercolour on Qing Q's Kingfisher I played with some acrylic ink, water and a hairdryer

To an extent I could "draw" with the hairdryer turning the drops of ink and chasing them down the page. This lead me to think of the fluid way in which a cat jumps down off a high object (I feed my cats on a shelf to stop my dog stealing their food) I am interested in capturing movement in the way that Louise Pallister does with her dogs

The moment I'm looking for is very brief. I did some drawings and as I haven't got any reference photos so I took some rubbishy video on my phone so that I could slow down the movement to see the best pose.

First attempt in charcoal with acrylic ink lines that didn't go where I wanted them to. I think the under drawing of the cat gives it energy but it still seems a bit stiff. The cat looks as though he is floating in space so I strenghtened the lines of the support.

I think I've been too tentative with the background so I added some ink but then the cat dissappeared so I added brown conte

A bit fussy and busy? plus the cat still looks static.

Second attempt using coloured inks for the lines. They worked well but the cat drawing is in Aquatone pencils with water added and it looks like a marrow!
I tried working into it a bit more

The sweep of yellow was a mistake as it has picked up some of the charcoal but I wasn't happy with the drawing before that anyway

 Back to some rough paper for some sketches using a Tombow marker

I think I know where I'm going now I like the sweep of the tail

I tried coloured pastel instead of ink for the background. I like the overall shape but the cat still looks like a marrow

 Also I think the cat needs more definition so I went back to it and added more pastel. This is a bit better and the cat looks more dynamic though I'm not sure if the background is too distracting

This is a better cat but I've been too cautious with the background colour (watercolour this time)

Too much colour again?

Maybe better cropped? I think this version does look quite dynamic but would have benefited from being positioned higher up the page so that the cat had somewhere to jump to.

I mocked this up on the computer. This would also have been easier as I wouldn't have to draw the cat so big. This is with a sheet of paper attached at the bottom

It's not possible to extend the splodgy colour properly but maybe it gives a better idea. I had to redraw it to see if it would look better. This time I just went for the cat in charcoal without the background. It does say animal line study in the instructions.....

I am trying not to be too finished but the lines where I was working out where to put the front leg are distracting me so I rubbed them out, sorry

Not happy with the position of the head...

I have a feeling the pictures are getting worse not better so I'm going to step away from this and see what my tutor thinks when he assesses this module.
Reviewing what I've done I saw potential for my "hairdryer drawing"

I can see cats in the tangle of lines

 I highlighted them with a graphite stick

Then added a touch of white oil pastel and brown conte. I think that took it too far and a simple approach was better.