Who knew?

Really, who knew the World Cup would inspire me to draw again? As I’ve mentioned, our country goes nuts at the World Cup Soccer matches. Since it only happens every four years, it is reasonable (or not???). Streets are painted yellow and green and streamers are hung everywhere. Our building is decorated with yellow and green balloons around all the columns and pillars. Those who are even somewhat enthused dress up in Brazilian colors. Those who are a little nuts, even dress up their animals.

Ok, I’ll admit it, even a few years back I didn’t really “get” it. I was raised on basket and baseball. Soccer was confusing to me. Over the years I’ve learned to cheer and appreciate the Brazilian enthusiasm. And they really are enthusiastic. So much so, it’s even rubbed off on me. I could hardly wait for the start of the games and have watched almost all the matches (which is the more correct term). I was the most popular woman at the recent wedding, since I “borrowed” my husband’s cell phone that has a TV and was able to watch the US and England match. Because the bride was conveniently 90 minutes late, I saw (make that “we”) the whole shooting match and was so thrilled with the tie (which is actually a win for the weaker US team). Tuesday was Brazil’s game and boy was I anxious.

To keep my mind half-way engaged elsewhere, I decided to start another drawing. Glad I did, as it was a less than stellar game. Sketching out the cat and choosing the colors and sharpening the pencils took most of the game. Brazil should have clobbered North Korea, but instead they managed to hammer out a pitiful 2 x 1 victory. To my dismay, it appears that Germany and Argentina are the best teams. Still, we are only beginning the second round of games, and we all had the shocker of seeing France defeated by Mexico (which is great), Uruguay beating out S, Africa (I felt sorry for them) and Greece managing to win over Nigeria (how did that happen?).

Since it’s hard not to want to see the games, I have given up the pretense of NOT watching them. I put on the TV, try to do useful things like cook and iron and today I worked some more on my white cat. So despite what I said in my last post, it appears I will complete more art work in the next week. I actually have a long way to go on this cat. A white cat is most challenging. I am using a lot more colors than on the tabby cat. I’ve used yellow, cream, gray (in various intensities), several shades of blue and pink, as well as some browns and umbers. She’s a gorgeous cat. Soon I hope to move on to doing cats I actually know. If anyone has a really good head shot or close-up of a cat to send me, do so! I don’t make any guarantees, for I am still figuring out how to shade and develop colors with the pencils. It’s surprisingly fun, though, despite the tediousness of it, as well as the expense. You wear down a pencil really quickly (I use the waxy Prismacolor pencils) and since they aren’t cheap, I easily spend quite a bit doing a “practice” drawing. I suppose there are worse things I could spend my money on. You know, like soccer uniforms for a cat…