She’s starting to grow fur now! This is the second layer, and she’ll receive about 2 more coats of fine little hairs before she gets her whiskers. I’ll detail her nose tomorrow as well. Yes, in case you’re wondering, I paint each hair one at a time. That’s how they grow, right? 😉
Here’s where I left off on Lucy’s portait. I’ve got her back and both paws nearly completed, they have about 4 layers on them now (they’re meant to be somewhat “blurry”, since her face is the focal point). They’ll get one more coat of very fine light reflective fur before they’re finished. I also deepened and began lightening her chin. This afternoon I’ll be working on the next layer on her face, I’ll post another work in progress when I get finished up provided I still have some daylight in the studio to get a good pic. I am planning on completing this portrait some time tomorrow.
(Click “works in progress” category to view Lucy’s painting as it has progressed!)
Lucy’s eyes are pretty well finished now. I’ve started lining the upper and lower lids, but will move on to her paws and back now. The way that I paint is from the back forward. This makes the most sense if you think about it, because the fur on the tip of her nose will lay on top of the fur on her cheekbones, which lays on top of the fur on her paws and back.
I’ve cropped her eyes from the last work in progress pics so you can see the progress without scrolling, too…
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.
I’ve been painting today, since the darn rain hasn’t let us do anything else. Ah I’m really not complaining about the rain, we really needed it, although better timing would have been just swell!
Here you go, finally, another work in progress on this piece. I do have a title in mind but it involves counting really high, and I don’t have that many fingers & toes. Since I’m still debating, I’ll leave my entries titled “New”.
This piece is still very much in its beginning stages, and just in case you can’t tell, this will be an orange daisy covered in water droplets.
I’ve got a few projects to work on this week, so I’m looking forward to a studio filled with creativity!
This piece is going to take some time to complete, and that’s okay, ’cause I really want it to be awesome. I’d like for it to be as hyperrealistic as I can possibly make it, just to push myself a little harder like I do with every piece, but I think even moreso with this one. I’ve been wanting a challenge like this one since I finished Antoinette, and every day I look at Homecoming I’m reminded of where I want to go with my paintings. I am also much more aware that the more patient I am with myself and my oils, the better the results.
