A Commissioned Cat Painting

Poppy In The Pansies

Oil on canvas board

The Initial Ideas

Poppy is a pretty tabby cat and her owner Andrea had photos of her curled up on the bed but she wanted Poppy to be sitting in the garden surrounded by pansies.

I did a series of sketches as there were several ideas I thought would work. Then a more detailed sketch of the pose that Andrea had picked showing how it might look once it was painted in oils. It took a while to do the sketches as I tried to find a balance in the number and colour of the pansies. Andrea helped a lot with her feedback during the sketching phase and we ended up with a plan for the painting.

The Painting Process

Poppy In The Pansies is an oil painting on canvas board. She was painted slowly using many layers with each layer of paint allowed to dry before the next was added. I taped her down to a larger board so that I could work over the edges of the painting.

I had a lot of reference photo for the pansies and while they were useful for the shapes of the flowers I changed the colours to pinks and purples as those were the colours Andrea wanted.

These violas are a wonderful rich, sumptuous plumy purple. The colour hasn't come from a tube but developed slowly as successive layers of violet, magenta, permanent rose and crimson were added to the petals. Here and there a pure pink or red adds a zing to the flowers.

Poppy herself was painted quite loosely to keep her coat looking soft. There are lots of blues, purples and golds in her fur as well as greys and creams.

The grass was a series of greens, yellows, blues, purples and ochres laid down layer after layer over a long period of time. It grew slowly and gradually and I worked with a fair amount of medium to keep the strokes wet, blending the edges so that the grass stays soft. In the final touches of the painting I added harder edges grass stems here and there.

The Finished Painting

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Poppy In the Pansies

16x12 inch oil on canvas

info@thepaintedcat.co.uk