It’s getting obsessive. Here’s two more of the beasts. I’m working on simplification here. Eliminating details, abstracting the essential parts, working, again, from the same model. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even bother to redraw the head. It’s a cut and paste world when you need it. Efficiency in art, you know? Kathy says she could recognize Smokey, the model, from across the room.

Then at the break at the previously mentioned marimba concert, it occurred to me that I could do it even more simply–the idea being that it could all be one motion, one complex stroke, so I did a quick sketch in one of my many pocket notebooks. Rough, but you can see the creature getting rounder, more like a swirl, which was the idea I was having. Cat as conch.

The end piece is pretty similar, although I’ll probably work it some more. I prefer the turn of the head in the previous efforts. Of course, it’s not for me, so I’m not the actual judge.