International studio (26.1905)

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EDWARD PENFIELD

STUDY OF TORTOISE SHELL CAT

fancy, he may settle down and purr over. Turning
the leaves is a pet failing. But one of his greatest
joys is to perch himself on the drawing-table, which
his master has at hand for working at chance ideas
of an evening or catching postures of Billy himself.
This last is not so simple a matter, for Billy prefers
to sit on the table or even on the sketch, and there he
will watch with the most delighted wonder the ink
line issuing from the moving pen or the Row of
colour oozing out from the brush, occasionally prof
fering velvet suggestions with a gently restive paw.
Billy's mother, a tortoise shell cat of distinction,
is to be seen here in the sketch, in alert enjoyment
of her evening meal. In the original she has a coat
of tawny orange and black, the two colours freely
struck on. Most of the other studies of cats are
either from Billy himself, or from rougher sketches
of Mm.
Mr. PenReld is much attracted to the study of
animals in form and colour, but he is not inclined
to. work from them direct with much elaboration.
Animals, as he says, are too much in motion; the
views they present are too constantly changing to
make careful drawing possible. The most that Mr.
PenReld seeks to do is to
record brieRy some obser-
vation in pose, gesture, or
in the colour eRect simply.
The construction of the
animal has to be known
thoroughly. The ways in
which he m ay disport him-
self make an endless study
and a fascinating one, but
to be pursued more with
the eye than the pencil.
Mr. PenReld, again, is
rarelysatisRed to endwith


a study from hasty sketches. He is more likely
to work over the study for the sake of composition
and line.
"It may be worse when I Rnish with it than it
was in the beginning," says he, "but I am inclined
to keep at it
till something
decorative is
developed."
In these
sketches,
picked at ran-
dom, of a fav-
ourite pet, the
artist's tend-
ency to work
at form and
line toward a
conventional



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