I finally got to a point where I wanted to stop and take a progress pic. This is pretty neat, if you look at it against the second work in progress here (the work in progress category), you can see the areas I’ve been working on.

Her ears have 3-4 more layers of hair, and I worked the hairline on the top of her head but won’t continue down her forehead until her ears are dry. I put a lot of time in on her left eye, you can see it’s much more glossy, and I’ll still enhance them just a smidge more after this layer is dry. I thought that having one eye at the first layer and one after the second was pretty neat and wanted to share. See? It’s really not so scary after all.

P.S. A while back, I posted a pic of my favorite paintbrushes. Just so you can see what I paint with!

I’ve gone ahead and completed Lucy’s underpainting. For those of you new to my works in progress, you can browse some of my past works in progress to get a feel for how I paint. (I am just now seeing some wierd database error, if you happen to get that, just scroll past it. Hm. I’ll fix that.)

I’ve worked the underpainting with the darkest values that I’ll layer coats of fur on top of. The underpainting colors then become the “shadow” of the fur. Her eyes have a really good underpainting, and they’ll get another coat as well, to really enhance her eye colors and make them even more glossy.

Here’s Lucy’s background color. Her portrait doesn’t wrap around the sides of the canvas so I gradated the green all the way around (the left & right sides are more dramatic since they’ll be much more visible when the painting is hung!).

I’ll add a tinge more depth and lightness to that chocolatey colored foreground, I’d like for it to accentuate her rust colors and really bring those out. I’ll be working on her eyes next, then the foreground again once this layer is dry. 🙂

This is Lucy, a custom cat portrait I’ll be working on over the next week or so. She’ll be done on a 10×10 gallerywrap canvas in oil, and as you can see from my reference photo she is an absolutely stunning Tortie kitty. Her mom picked out the most beautiful shade of green (matching her eyes) for her background color, and that will be the first work in progress shot you’ll be seeing of her.

Custom Cat Portrait : Sissy
12 x 16 Oil Painting
Gallerywrap Canvas
© 2005 Leanne Wildermuth
All Rights Reserved

Click “read more” for detail shot!

I’m waiting on final approval on her, but here she is. I’ll post the final scan & details after the paint dries!

I’ve been painting all day today, and here’s Sissy’s progress. She’s almost complete! I’m going to try to add her final coat tonight, if not tomorrow morning.

I’ve just completed the underpainting on this custom cat portrait, and it’s going to make for a great base for the layers to come. I joke around with my friends about my underpaintings, always justifying the colors I choose for underpaintings by saying “well? if you shaved him that’s what he’d look like, right?”

I’ve got a lot done, but have a ton more to do. She’ll end up with another layer of darks, then at least 3 light layers of poofy floofy hair applied strand by strand. She’s a white cat. Trust me. (Her eyes etc. will be further refined & enhanced as well. Whiskers come last, well, right before I sign it.)

😉

Here’s the background color scheme for Sissy’s portrait. The darkened right side will balance the shadow on that side of her portrait. I’m not sure I like the drop shadow on the ledge yet, I’ll wait until it dries and see how I like it, probably tweak it more.