The Genesis

A few years ago, I worked a job in Pittsburgh, PA. One weekend, I was shopping in a local store and found these fantastic cards - old timey black and white photos of people paired with snarky, sarcastic, biting comments that made me laugh.

When I started my graphite drawings, I gravitated towards cats, since I have my own unlimited supply of reference material.

Further, we’ve always put voices to our cats to describe what they’re thinking. I paired that with the drawings, and the Snarky Cats were born!

My Models

Most of my drawings are based on real-life pictures of our cats:

• Iris, our 8 year old money cat

• Stella and Myles, a brother and sister pair of kittens we adopted in 2025 at 3 1/2 months old.

Other drawings are inspired from pictures I've seen on websites of images for artists (such as Pixabay).

The snark...so far:

Sometimes you can tell what they're thinking from the looks on their faces.

More to come...stay tuned!

My Process

I get asked a lot how I get the snarky cat images to look so realistic - so I took pictures of my process and how I get from photo to finished product. Here's what I do:

1. Find or take a photo.

   I thought this photo of the kittens napping together would make a great image for a graphite drawing.

2. Convert the photo to line art.

   Sometimes I trace the main lines onto tracing paper, other times I use computerized line art generators to create line art and remove or block out items I don't want in the picture.

3. Transfer line art to paper.

   I either trace or use an inkjet printer to transfer the line art onto my paper. I typically use Strathmore Colored Pencil Paper for my graphite drawings; recently, I've also started using drafting film.

4. Recolor the original photo to black and white.

   When I'm ready to start drawing, I recolor the original photo by altering the saturation level on the image - cutting saturation down leads to a black/white/gray image that I use as my reference while drawing.

5. Draw!

   Then, I do the drawing work:

   I start with the darkest areas, then the lightest areas, and then work through the mid-tones until I get a base of color down on the entire image, using the reference and the line art as a guide.

   Once based in, I blend - even on the cats' fur, so there's a base of color under the detail.

   Then, I add detail and blend or remove as needed, following the reference image as a guide.

   When complete, I use a workable fixative to protect the drawing from smudging/damage. (The image to the right is almost done...just need to add kitty whiskers!)

6. Generating cards

   Next I scan the image (600 dpi) and touch up as necessary. I use PaintX for touch ups.

   I use PhotoPea online to lay out and brand the cards, and add the cat's snarky commentary.

   Each card is saved as a .psd file, which I then print on an Epson ET-8550 printer using Red River Paper stock.