Sock Lion

Meet Sock Lion. He joined our family in June 2007 for Trevor's first birthday. 

 

Sock Lion was a gift from my MOMS Club Secret Pal. Trevor LOVED Sock Lion. 

He loved Sock Lion so much that I took the advice of a fellow mom and bought a duplicate so that in case anything ever happened to Sock Lion, I could pull out a twin. 

Nothing bad ever happened to Sock Lion, so I was able to give his untouched twin away. I could never give Sock Lion away though. He'll be in our family forever. 

You may wonder why I bring up Sock Lion now. It's because I recently made a colored pencil portrait of him. 

The latest contest at Colored Pencil Magazine (affiliate link) is to use "colored pencils to create a new image of a non-domesticated feline." I am not particularly interested in drawing a random tiger, leopard, or lion, as that's a lot of time to spend on something that doesn't have meaning to me. Not to mention, coloring a realistic wild cat sounds ridiculously difficult for a beginner for me. The perfect compromise? Drawing Sock Lion. 

I'm not sure how the judges will feel about my creative interpretation of the rules, but I don't really care. I don't expect to win anyway. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised, like last time. Or maybe not. Either way, I learned a lot while doing this drawing. The #1 thing I learned is that I hate doing backgrounds. I need to come up with a better way to fill a large amount of space. I also learned not to sketch with a regular pencil. Instead, I need to use a light color that I can effectively color over. Finally, I learned that I need a good brush for getting rid of pencil crumbs; blowing them away, or using my hand to wipe them away, don't work well. 

This project was a lot of fun and I look forward to the next challenge!