Finally! A new painting! It’s so nice to finally be back to painting. I missed it so much. Continue reading “Tabby Tabby Tabby”
Tabby Tabby Tabby
Tag: gessobord
Big Ears (Cat Head)
This lovely kitty was painted in one sitting, which is a little unusual for me. Or perhaps this is my “new normal”? I had a 5×5″ piece of Gessobord and it needed to be used. Continue reading “Big Ears (Cat Head)”
Cat heads, cat heads, cat heads, & other updates
I’m very behind in posting my latest cat head paintings. This post will allow me to catch up!
Such an attitude! I loved painting this kitty. But then again, I always love painting the cat heads. Continue reading “Cat heads, cat heads, cat heads, & other updates”
Fluffy and Orange
I wanted to do an itty-bitty painting, and finally got around to painting this orange, fluffy cat head. I tried to keep the brush strokes more spontaneous, but alas, I must fuss. For a little 4×4″ painting, there is a lot of detail, I suppose! Continue reading “Fluffy and Orange”
With a Black Spot on His Nose – Cat Head
This white kitty was so adorable and all the colors in his fur were fascinating to try to capture. This is a slightly different pose for me, as I often paint just the head of the cat. (I call these paintings my Cat Head Paintings.) Well, this is still a Cat Head, but we have some paws and some indication of a body. Woo hoo, I’m moving outside my comfort zone! 😉 Continue reading “With a Black Spot on His Nose – Cat Head”
Cat in Silhouette & Pink Ribbon
Here are two “new” paintings that are actually old paintings that I finally decided to finish up and post online!
I liked this very simple cat portrait—just the silhouette, with a little light touching the sides of the body, and the tip of the tail. It’s that tip of the tail that really catches my eye. I fussed with this painting off and on, and finally decided that simple was best, put a fork in it, it is done!
This second painting is a portrait of fellow artist Pavina. She sometimes models for our art / drawing groups, and during some of these modeling sessions I took a series of photos of her. This little oil sketch uses one of these photos. Continue reading “Cat in Silhouette & Pink Ribbon”
Hot and Cold
Another exploration of cold and warm light playing on the face. I used a full-body stock photo as reference, and had to really zoooom in on the face, but there was a lot of fascinating information in the flesh tones! There’s also a bit of drama in the lighting as well. I found there were subtle pale blues in the highlighted side of the man’s face, and some warm burgundies and purples contained within the shadows. I left the collar and hair very loosely rendered, because I was most interested in the colors of the flesh.
It’s painted on Gessobord, a favorite “guilty pleasure” painting panel. I keep obsessively collecting Gessobord. It’s a hardboard panel with a wonderful, smooth eggshell-textured white coat of acrylic primer on top. I love this painting surface but try to control myself and don’t use it all the time!
Ray Bans
I’ve been nursing this painting along for a few days. I considered it an interesting color study—I thought the reference photo (used with permission, of course) had so many fascinating colors, warm and cool, and a blue or green cast to them. I am not sure that this photo of my painting adequately captures what I was aiming for, though.
What I saw in the reference photo was a lot of cool pink cast, with some greens and blues in the flesh, especially the highlights. This photo looks like it has more orange in it. I see more subtle cool pinks in the painting.
Ah well, you can’t win them all!
It’s been a long, long day so I’ll leave this post brief for now, possibly adding more later.
Splotched Kitty Head, plus a Work in Progress
Another month, and some new works! Yes, there has been a lapse of paintings for this blog. It was a busy few weeks. But I’ve still been hard at work, painting!
This cat head painting was a particular challenge, because of all the . . . splotches. Our family calls calico/tortoiseshell kitties “splotched” kitties, because of all the multitude of colors. Well, actually my dad called these type of cats “multi-color.” We can’t just call them “calicos,” now can we? 😉
The challenge in this painting was representing the splotches on the surface of the cat, while still representing the form and dimension. I hope I succeeded in that. It certainly did make me think, as I painted!
In addition, here’s a work in progress painting. Hopefully it’ll be done in a day or two. Not much to say yet about this one, other than I’ve enjoyed the drama drama drama of the pose!
Lady with Hat, oil panel
I loved the expression and pose of this one. The original photo that I used as reference had an exaggerated “golden” tint to it, which I didn’t want to paint. So I ran the photo through my iPad photo editing app (not iPhoto) and chose an option that took away a lot of the yellow. Then I used the adjusted photo as my reference. It was an interesting little iPad tweak!
There were a lot of golds, greens, and muted oranges in this one. A different color scheme, but a lot of fun to paint! She has a very vintage look to her, her expression and the way her head is tilted.
I enjoyed painting this one, and now it’s time for the next!