Illustrating the Cat In Action

Cat art is a unique specialization that brings into the canvas a drama seldom seen in many subjects. Though it is popular to many cat enthusiasts, non-enthusiasts as well are drawn to the compositions largely because, every now and then, a keen artist tries to capture, not the cuteness and cuddliness of the creature, but the enigma of its movement that has fascinated observers for a long time.

Though there are not much cat breeds in the world, the way it moves has been the object of much admiration. And, to many, the next best thing to owning a cat (or a collection of cats) is owning a portrait of a cat in action.

In contemporary times, it has been held that the ultimate authority in cat action portraits is the animator. But there are some artists who have gone out of their way to focus and challenge their skill in capturing a cat's action in a single frame, whether on a canvas, board, or sketch pad. And we're not talking about abstract art as Marcel Duchamp did in his photomontage portrait of a nude woman descending down a staircase. We are talking about the strict, conventional utilization of the basic elements of drawing to compose an understandable cat in action.

Action portrait experts adhere to an element called the line of action, in which a single uncomplicated sweeping line determines a figure's pose and action. Animators have used this for a series of a figure's in-between movements. In the absence of any previous or succeeding frames, how is a non-animator to accomplish this?

Firstly, notice that in real-life, cat movements are very fluid and seem deliberate and predictable. A cat seems to glide through an unbroken sequence of scripted motion. Non-animators will summarize all pre-conceived movements in a single pose, captured initially with one sweep of an action line. Though lines these are, it is normal for an artist to toil tediously, doodling with sweeping lines all over his sketch pad, to find one to suit his figure harmoniously in relation to the other elements of drawing, if he wants a composition that is not awkward and confusing.

Cat artists will agree that the line of action would seem to have been tailor made for the cat. This is because in its simplicity, the line profoundly encapsulates the before and after movements of the subject; and by touching on the spectator's feelings, a single drawing directed by an action line will contain the mystery of motion that the human mind may not deny.