A quick sketch of Cassie lying on the table watching the birds through the window.

Charlie and Ming having a grooming session. Charlie seems to be doing all the work and Ming having all the fun.

Hemi, a brown spotted boy, Shelby, a snow marble girl and Rally, a brown marble boy, belong to Amy and Tyler Cross. How lucky they are to have three such beautiful and yet such different Bengals.  

I started with sketches of them together and once we had one we liked I moved on to the canvas. The painting will be 22×16 inches when it’s finished.

The three of them are sketched loosely onto the canvas.

The under painting is developing, the cats have a bit more form and the background is starting to go on.

Now the background is laid in and I’m starting to develop the cats themselves, especially their eyes.

I’m really enjoying painting these three beauties, I love the pose, I love the contrast between their different coats and especially the three sets of beautiful Bengal eyes, gold, green and blue. This photo shows their eyes well.

 And here is the finished painting. It’s many layers later and I’ve been gradually building up the colour in each of the cats, developing their fur and adding the shine on their coats.

Then there’s a period of fine tuning, emphasizing the shadows and tweaking the colour across the painting. Then I finished the red cushions, although they don’t come out well in digital photos. Then the final touch, whiskers!

Shelby

Rally

Hemi

And here’s a close up detail of the canvas….

   
Hemi’s beautiful green eyes. 

Here is my latest Bengal painting. This is Mulberry sleeping in the hanging basket. Now, I know cats love odd places to sleep and they have a thing for baskets and boxes, but this is taking it to the next level! Well done Mulberry!

This is a 16 x 12 inch painting (roughly), painted in acrylics on William Turner watercolour paper.

This is a close up of the painting.

This is the finished portrait of Charlie, my beautiful bengal cat. It’s a  20×16 acrylic painting on canvas. I’ve loved doing this one!

Here’s how it was painted….

I’m painting Charlie, my brown spotted Bengal as a 20×16 canvas. I loved the original photo I took of him staring out of the window, it’s such an intense expression and it really shows off his beautiful eyes. I couldn’t resist painting him.

Stage 1

This is the sketch on the canvas and the first bits of the under painting. His whiskers have blue and violet as a base coat and I’ve started to fill out some of the darks and added some pinks to his ears, nose and mouth.

Stage 2

 I’m using Carmine Red and Jenkins Green to make a rich, dark colour for the background, applying that roughly with a large brush and letting the colours mix on the canvas.

I’m using Quinacridone Gold, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber for his body and various oranges and golds along with the brown to emphasize his markings. I’ve worked on his nose in particular, developing that lovely pinky orange colour of his nose leather and the blue highlights in the fur just above his nose.

This is a close up view of stage 2 of the painting.

Stage 3

Working on his body now. I want a suggestion of spots but without too much detail as most of his body is in shadow. Fine tuning the fur on his face and starting those wonderful green eyes.

Stage 4

In this final photo of the series I’ve finished his eyes, added his whiskers, finished off his ears and added his gold collar as well as adding many small touches of pure colour to bring certain areas of the painting to life.

This close up of the painting shows the details of his eyes and the fur in the ears as well as some of the final touches like the blues and violets around his muzzle. I’ve really enjoyed painting Charlie.