A Commissioned Cat Painting

Saphir and Kiwi Playing

Oil on linen canvas

The Initial Ideas

Saphir and Kiwi are two active and playful siamese cats. Their owners sent me a range of different photos that showed them in different situations, some gave me a good idea of their coat colours and others were action shots of them playing. I wanted to paint them playing with each other.

I combined the two poses into one composition and sent a series of quick sketches to their owners to see if they liked my ideas. They did and so I did a more detailed sketch of how the painting might look once it was painted in oils. This sketch is done digitally in a program called Painter and it allows me to give a good idea of how the finished oil painting will look.

The Painting Process

Now I start work on the final oil painting. I often work on fine grained linen canvas pinned to a board. The under painting is done with acrylics first of all to block in the general shapes of the painting.

Then I start working in oils slowly building up layer after layer and gradually building the detail in the painting. Once it's dry it gets stretched over wooden stretcher bars and then the final details like whiskers are added.

The Finished Painting

view detail

Saphir and Kiwi Playing

oil on linen canvas

info@thepaintedcat.co.uk