I’ve sketched out Lola this afternoon, she’s a beauuuutiful silver lab (reminds me of a Weimaraner). She’s only about 7 months old. A couple of her reference photos show her in this same collar just a couple of months old, and boy has she grown into it! What a beautiful breed, though – honestly I’d never even seen a silver lab until Lola – and now I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for them!

My client (you can read her blog here) found my Etsy shop and ordered her custom portrait through my shop. Funny thing – I designed her blog for her about a year ago! So cool to get to work with her again. I’m just tickled. 🙂

I’ll be working on Lola’s background tomorrow.

aka “How to furry up your bald cat.”

 

 

From my previous work in progress, you can go ahead and admit it – you were frightened. It is hard for some people to envision my finished portrait when they view the underpaintings, and that’s okay. I mean, as long as no one is scared off by it! After sharing the final digital pic of the finished portrait with my client last night, I realized that you really do have to know my work, and in a lot of cases you have to own one of my paintings, in order to overlook the craziness that is one of my underpaintings.

So for Kona’s portrait, I decided to stop every so often and snap a photo, and share my entire work in progress. If you’re an artist, and you want to take this as a “how to paint a cat portrait”, then I do hope this helps you. I’ll try to detail out my thought process through the painting so you can get an idea of how I work.

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Just finished Kona’s underpainting! So good to be out in the studio again.

I’ve kept my palette to a minimum, using just 8 colors. Indigo, sap green, burnt umber for my darkest darks, magenta, ochre, winsor yellow and cadmium orange for Kona’s coat, and white. Oh, yes, and I pulled in just a smidge of french ultramarine for her multi-striped collar.

I’ll apply several coats of fur once the underpainting is dry and also glossy up her eyes and nose. She’ll be just beautiful when she’s all done!

I’ve begun a new cat portrait! This is Kona, an orange tabby. My client chose the background color, which I think is really going to set off her beautiful coat color, and also go well with the other portraits I’ve already completed once they’re hung together in an arrangement! (Elsie, Badger, Jambalaya and now Kona. Taysia Blue, another husky in the family, will have her portrait done eventually, as well.)

I’ve used a mixture of both Sap and Olive green for this background color, lightening it up a bit using Naples Yellow Light, which is a very beautiful creamy color that warms the greens around her face.

I’ll be working on her underpainting today, so look for that over the next day or two.

Caesar’s portrait is complete, pending client proofing. You may notice I’ve changed the collar from blue to red – a last minute tweaking that makes him even a little more bold against the canvas.

Enjoy!

Here’s Caesar’s underpainting. If you’re curious, I don’t use any black in my paintings at all. I haven’t in quite some time. Since there is no “black” in nature, my black consists of various combinations of indigo with raw umber, sap green and/or magenta. I think this produces a much more natural portrait with true earth tones.

You can see that my reference photos aren’t really “perfect”, but I wanted you to see that sometimes, if it’s all you have, it can still work. A few photos that show me personality, coat length and color and a bit of eye color, and I can usually fill in the rest. I know how important it is that the end result replace those photos with a clear, lifelike memory of a pet.

That said, I’ve got Caesar speed drying and I’m going to try to finish his portrait tomorrow afternoon.

I’ve finished the background on Caesar’s portrait. The sides of the piece are a bit darker and makes a nice border frame on the wrapped canvas. I’ll work in the underpainting when this is dry (hopefully tomorrow afternoon).

I’ve started a new portrait today, this is Caesar. He’s a black lab, and I’ll be painting his background (blue), which is really going to set off his portrait nicely. I’ll post another update on this painting after I work in the background.

I’ve gone and snuck in another painting on you – this is Soubi, a sweet little baby orange tabby kitty. It’s a 4×4 painting, so not very big – and I’ve been working it in as I’ve been working on Tucker’s portraits.