Hey First name / friends!

 

The past month has been super busy for me while I was working on launching my program, The Art of Collections. So busy, in fact, that I haven't created any new artwork in over a month! 

 

There's a common misconception that in order to consider yourself an artist you have to be creating new work every day or every week. Well…spoiler alert! It's not true! Even as a professional artist, I have big chunks of time where I'm not able to create new work.

 

Life will inevitably get in the way of your art practice sometimes. So if you haven't created art in a while, know that you are absolutely still an artist. Don't beat yourself up. Just come back to your creative practice when you can! It will be waiting for you with open arms. 

 

I finally had some time to start a new illustration this week, and I fired up the Procreate app for the first time in a looooong time. It felt so good to be back! Now to decide what to draw…

 

Each month in The Art of Collections, my students get an in-depth prompt to help them build a marketable collection of artwork.

 

So I decided to join in on my own challenge and create something new alongside my students. I chose to refresh my existing “Pumpkin Confetti" collection with a new hero illustration. 

I've been on a cat kick in my recent illustrations, inspired by the cute family of kitties who live in the parking lot of my apartment complex. (check out my Instagram stories for daily cat updates 😅)

 

After I came back from my morning visit with my favorite kittens, I was inspired to draw an illustration of a kitty and pumpkin for my new hero! Here's my initial sketch:

I did a quick color study using the same palette from my existing “Pumpkin Confetti” collection. Here’s where I’m at with my blobby color study right now:

And here's the coolest part: I shared my process in The Art of Collections community and one of my students had an amazing suggestion that I'm going to use as a color alt. She shared that she's drawing a black cat for the collection she's working on, which inspired me to explore a darker version of my kitty cat in my next color study. (It is a spooky October cat, after all!) 🐈‍⬛ 🎃

 

This is why community and collaboration with other artists is so important. When we put our heads together, that's when the magic happens!

Your prompt this week is to create a black cat illustration! 

 

If black feels like it doesn't fit with your color palette, try swapping it out with a different dark color that works well with your vision. I'm exploring a navy cat rather than black since that's already in my “Pumpkin Confetti” collection color palette!

 

Make sure to share your black cats on Instagram with the hashtag #CreateWithCatCoq and tag me @catcoq for a chance to be featured in this newsletter! 

 

Cats mayyyyy or may not be my favorite motif, so I can't wait to see what you come up with! 

Last week's challenge was to illustrate some autumn leaves. I love how these patterns and illustrations turned out! 

Have a fabulous week!