It is adorable and very well done. Since you asked for constructive criticism- I’m going to get real small here because you are a talented artist and have that well covered- so any “improvement” you could see is both subjective, and subtle. Please take this as TECHNICAL criticism of opinion, but know it’s a wonderful piece and I thank you for sharing it and encourage you to keep making more (by the lions of it you’ve made plenty of drawings already!)
1. Realism vs style- might be invalidated by style choices: the yarn position is very cute. Anatomically a cats lower jaw tends to be further back- unless the yarn was “stuck” on them it would be hard for it to be so far out of their mouth. Of course- maybe this cat has a protruding lower jaw and I’m too ignorant to see it. But that stood out to me and took my mind out of the illusion I was looking at a photo.
2. Could be style again but: lines. You have some good line work. The thick lines on the paws set up dimension. But... there at places here and there where the line thickness and weight is not consistent or seems off. Some places it is clear that it is part of the effect and using pencil to create optical cues. Others just look like it is inconsistent line work. The yarn has a bit of this....
3. The yarn: overall very nice. You didn’t make it a perfect sphere- great touch of realism there. You show textile lines on your yarn- another nice detail. That said- to be honest- it looks like you just didn’t put the same joy into the yard as kitty. Kitty has these lovely delicate fur lines on its back, so much amazing detail- and the yarn... it’s good, solid, but it feels like we just wanted to get the yarn done so it wouldn’t be just a cute cat.
It isn’t “wrong” and in reality it can happen- but there are many places the textile detail on the yarn threads line up with perpendicular boundary lines for the threads themselves. This looks at a glance to be accidental or sloppy line work, where the line was carried over the thread “underneath” to the thread “on top.” Of you offset the texture by a just a smidge it would make it more visually clear that the lines are intended to be not one unbroken line that wasn’t cleaned up.
There is a thread of yarn on the ball in the “foreground” that appears larger than the others. That is fine perspective- but the lines are very heavy and at least on my phone, even “blown up”, (and this could be artifacts from upload etc...) that one thread looks shaded- but with the lighting on the kitty and it’s position, the shading shouldn’t belong there.
4. Going back to kitty: this one is another tough one. I can see why you didn’t do it- and could chalk it up to style etc- but at the angle we are at and with what the lighting appears to be, we should be able to see the canal of kitty’s ear. You get good detail of the inner ear- and where the canal should be is a white spot roughy following the shape of where it would be. I can’t say I could make it look right- and perhaps you tried and made the decision to leave it out. Looks good without it- but it rocks some realism, especially since the lighting doesn’t appear to be in a way that we could easily intuit that inner ear would be “washed out” in light.
But again- it is fabulous and adorable. These are nit picks and I’m not an art major or a professional- so what do I know anyway? If they help you out- great. But you draw so well as is that any “improvement” you’d make is largely just for self enrichment. You make beautiful art.
Very well done. I would say the most important improvement you could make would be contrast. When drawing/painting in black and white people have a tendency to allocate the same shade to both depth of color and dimensional depth. So it ends up making it look flat.
A great way to practice is to illustrate a collection white objects and add one single object with a really bold color. It will help you balance the difference in color density and dimensional density.
2. Could be style again but: lines. You have some good line work. The thick lines on the paws set up dimension. But... there at places here and there where the line thickness and weight is not consistent or seems off. Some places it is clear that it is part of the effect and using pencil to create optical cues. Others just look like it is inconsistent line work. The yarn has a bit of this....
A great way to practice is to illustrate a collection white objects and add one single object with a really bold color. It will help you balance the difference in color density and dimensional density.