Tips, advice, recommendations and reviews
Freelance artists, especially painters, illustrators, and feline-focused creators whose collectors want more cat art, often crave a side income that doesn’t depend on the next commission. The core tension is real: profitable side gigs can quietly eat the hours meant for sketching, experimenting, and finishing work that actually builds a portfolio. Between client messages, inconsistent … More How To Start a Flexible Side Gig
UK creatives, illustrators, photographers, makers, musicians, designers, writers, don’t usually struggle with talent. The pain is distribution: being brilliant in a quiet room. If you’re a UK creative, you’re not competing on talent, you’re competing on clarity and consistency. This guide breaks discovery down into practical moves you can repeat each week, even if you … More Getting Discovered as a UK Creative (So Your Passion Pays)
I have been drawing with colour pencils for 14 years, first on Daler-Rowney pastel paper, then heavy weight Cartridge paper. I also tried Daler-Rowney board for bigger drawings (A1 and A2 size) but in the end, it is Pastelmat that best suits my present style of drawing: animal portraits.. The colours come out more vibrant … More Working on Pastelmat
S.O.F.A. member France Bauduin talks about the making of her beautiful drawing of a mother cat and her playful kittens, ‘Happy Days 2’. A project that took her 293 hours to draw it over a 6 months period. Early last spring, I came up with the concept of featuring my queen Laila with the four … More Making Happy Days 2
As an associate member of SOFA I thought I would drop you a line to tell you about an amazing sketching Safari that I went on in August this year. The Safari in Northern Botswana was for anyone interested in Sketching and learning about ‘Big Cats’ Their behaviour, anatomy, the way they move and their … More Sketching Safari in Northern Botswana
S.O.F.A. member Sara Butt shares her love of working in acrylics. In the early years of studying art and experimenting with mediums from oil, water colour, pastel to coloured inks, it didn’t take long to find my soul mate acrylic, I find it works for me, very forgiving and with a good quality pigment paint … More Working with Acrylics
S.O.F.A. member France Bauduin shares her tips on photographing pets. In my previous article, I explained how you could create original compositions from your own photos. Here, I would like to give you a few tips to help you take great action shots of your pet. 1) Choose the right camera Mine is small and … More Pet Photography Tips
S.O.F.A. member Tamsin Lord shares her love of gouache. The medium of choice for my feline art is Designers’ Gouache, which is a range of opaque water colours. They are so called because they were developed for use by designers, illustrators and commercial artists to create crisp, vibrant visuals and illustrations in solid colour. I … More Getting to Grips with Gouache
Society Of Feline Artists 