Another cat head! As you know, I love painting the cat heads.
This painting was used as an exercise for some oil painting classes. (Yes, I now am teaching!) I wanted to start my student out with a simple, limited palette, and the Zorn Palette is well suited for that. You can mix many colors with only these four pigments: White, Vermillion (Cadmium Red Light will do), Yellow Ochre, and Black. You can read more about the Zorn Palette in this previous post.
This kitty’s eyes were a lovely green, and with the Zorn palette, I fear I didn’t get the eyes quite as vibrant, but it isn’t bad! The black I used in this painting (I alternated between Ivory Black and Winsor & Newton’s “Blue Black”) has a cool cast to it, so when I mixed it with white and yellow ochre, it creates a nice olivey-green.
I painted this on a simple canvas panel with a smooth ‘tooth,’ with a little texture, but not a lot. It was a delight to paint this beautiful cat!
