A portrait of Geezer by the pond. This was a commissioned painting for his owners Fiona and Mark. Geezer was an amazing and very rare male silver tortie Maine Coon. I love the way he lets his tail float in the pond.

These five beautiful cats belong to Cindy Larson and I’m trying to capture all five in one large painting. Luckily these five fabulous felines have been pretty co-operative and have all posed in just the right position to make a good picture. This is a large 20×30 painting in acrylics on canvas.

The sketch on the canvas.

 
The under painting.

Starting on the background.

Starting on the cats themselves.  

The finished 30 x 20 painting.

Now it just needs varnishing. The five of them have come together very well and I just love Josie, the Maine Coon, stretched out in the middle of the painting with her amazing tail draped over the edge of the bed.

And here are some close ups of the finished canvas.

This is Mad Dog, I love his casual pose and direct expression.

Isis and Bobina the youngsters. What an unusual and pretty pair they are.

Cooper in laid back mode.

Josie looking wonderfully relaxed.

And this shows the detail of the canvas.

These five cats have been wonderful to paint! I feel like I’ve really got to know them as the painting has progressed. It’ll be sad to see it go to it’s new home. 

This is a commissioned painting of Sienna, a beautiful Burmese cat and her litter of Tonkinese kittens. They are so sweet and they make a wonderful picture of happy feline family life. I started with sketch ideas.

Then I sketched out the pose on to canvas and using very light layers of acrylic I started to build up the dark layers of Sienna herself, the golds in the background and the darker noses and ears of the kittens.

Then I concentrated on Sienna, bringing her form to life on the canvas. Now to start on the kittens……

And here is the finished painting with the kttens fully developed and the background deepened.

Click the image to see a close up detail

Sweatpea is an eight year old brown Burmese and she’s clearly quite a character! Her owner has commissioned a painting of her and I’m painting her in acrylics on William Turner watercolour paper.

We decided that she looked wonderful belly up on the soft cream fur throws.

I started the painting with a loose wash of colour as the under painting and then started building layers of colour and tone to gradually create her form.

Even though she’s a brown cat, there are lots of colours in her fur; reds, browns, golds, greens and violets. And the cream throw she’s lying on has shades of gold and rose and violet in it too.

She looks so inviting doesn’t she? I just want to reach out and tickle her belly.

This is a large acrylic commissioned painting of Ozzy, a Snow Bengal. He’s standing in a field of bluebells and forget-me-nots.

The canvas is pinned to a large board and the first underpainting is done. Then I start on building Ozzy’s form.

As Ozzy takes shape I move over to the background and start on the layers of colour that make up the bluebells and forget-me-nots. I want to keep the background very loose and soft. Then back to Ozzy for the final development. It’s nearly finished.

Here’s the finished painting stretched over 20 x16 stretcher bars and varnished. Click the image to see a close up of the canvas.