A painting of Sarah's Kitty La Fuzz!

I've never done a full animal portrait before but when Sarah made a close door available for a painting, what better subject? Due to the size of the door, my early thought was to do a sitting pose and I made several drawings of that. However,  Sarah pointed out that I had a photo of La Fuzz in the full "lay out" position and that would be a nice idea for a painting. Agreed!

I had never worked on a wood panel before, but decided to prime and sand the surface exactly as I would for a canvas. Why I thought that would work, I don't know, but it did!

Here are some photos of the early drawings of an upright pose:

The second drawing was in the actual shape of the door panel. I'm glad I didn't proceed with this idea!

The photo of La Fuzz which, when turned vertically, became the basis for kitty landscape.

Here is the panel laid out ready for priming. The second photo shows the first layer of primer on the panel.  The third photo shows the preliminary drawing of La Fuzz onto the panel.

La Fuzz #1

La Fuzz has attitude and I think this shows that.  I had decided to make the painting blue, so next step was to lay on the background and then a lot of blue paint.

La Fuzz #2

La Fuzz #3

The painting went very quickly and I was happy with it from the beginning!

La Fuzz #4

La Fuzz #5

After some discussion with Sarah and David, I decided that more work was needed on the bottom third of the painting. As this painting could be hung as a horizontal "landscape" or vertically as a portrait, more attention was needed at the bottom, without taking away from the subject, which was the face and paws.  Here is the final version of the painting:

Kitty Landscape

(60" x 20")

And here is my favorite photo of the painting!

More Whacky Drawings

Whacky Drawings

I have gone back to a series of drawings that I did a few years ago and "colorized" them using Photoshop. There are a few here which I'm thinking of making into large paintings.

One Iris

I guess it was inevitable, sine I've done three irises and two irises, that I would get around to make a one iris painting. This image came from a photo of the magnificent irises at the Shepherd/Morse's home.  Here is the original photo that I worked up:

Next step was to isolate the image from this that I wanted to use and photoshop it

:

Then the painting is underway:

One Iris #1

This is a small painting (12" x 24") but could be a model for a much larger piece, perhaps 24" x 48". But first things first. Next step here is to continue the background into the green/blue section of the painting. I'm thinking that I'll continue the swirling brush strokes down below, but alternate colors, rather than just the intensities. The trick will be to mix the right light purple for the flower. Good luck with that!

One Iris #2

I'm thinking this isn't a bad start actually.  I lightened the blue background using some turquoise which needs a clean up but it was the right idea. Question is what to make of the bottom half of the painting. Easiest choice would be to continue the turquoise swirls but perhaps with an even lighter cast. Or perhaps a light Viridian would work? Will test out both in sections, which might actually be an interesting solution. 

One Iris #3

Ok, so the color change to the bottom worked well, I think.  However, there between the two leafs on the right side is too dark and needs to be lightened, as does, perhaps, the area immediately under the bottom right leaf.  Will let this sit for a while before wading back in.

Decided I wanted to turn down the purple color and get some blue into the buds and flower. Also worked on the wavy lines, leaving the darker area in the bottom right alone for now.

One Iris #4

I'm liking this more.  Thinking that I'll leave it for now.  The added blue colors, and the increased light colors in the flower gave the flower more depth I think.  Do have to fix the bottom right side though.

Went back in and worked on the bottom right side of the painting and then also waded into the flower itself, trying to give it more depth.

One Iris #5

Wanted to fix the upper right iris bud, which looks junky here. Also did some more work in the bottom right of the painting. I'm wondering if I should actually darken the area around the flower just a little more so it stands out.

Three Orchids

I am on a roll and am continuing my study of orchids, my favorite flower, were it not for all the others. Here's the original photo and my work up for the painting:

I didn't want to reproduce the photo as is, so I photoshopped it to something closer to what I wanted to do. This included cropping, changing colors, and changing shapes:

This was looking closer to what I wanted to do for the painting.  Started right in and here's the first session:

Three Orchids #1

Of course, there's a long way to go.  The leaf colors are pretty close to the ones in the photo, but the background is blue right now to identify the background areas. I'm not sure that this will be the final color, but it works very well for now.

Three Orchids #2

I'm happy with the progress so far, which is unusual. If I can keep myself from wading in with some drastic change, this painting might actually work.  Big question will be the color of the surrounding leaves, such that they don't compete with the flowers over much.  But, next step will be to do the other two orchids.

Three Orchids #3

I think that for now, anyway, it's going well.  I have to fill in the other two orchids, though, to make sure that they balance out the painting properly.  Then I can work on the rest of the foliage.  Thinking that the center is a bit too stripy on the left side, so might fix that in the next round by darkening the lightest of the sections on the left. For some reason, the rest of the discussion was erased and rather than try to reproduce the thought process, we end here.

Three Orchids #4

Three Orchids #5

Three Orchids $6

The final version of the painting...