This is a scan. All the other images in this post are photos.
This portrait is a small piece—only 8” x 10”—but it has a lot of meaning for me.
For one thing, I’ve based this portrait on the photo of a cat which decorates a vinyl change purse my sister gave me many years ago. I’ve gotten so many compliments on it when I pulled it from my purse to get my credit card. At that moment, this sweet cat’s face stares straight at the sales clerk who very often commented on how cute this little one was.
A few weeks ago, the zipper on that change purse broke, and it’s career was sadly over. But I couldn’t bear to part without before first preserving that face in this drawing.
For another thing, I find her expression fascinating. What is she thinking? Is she surprised? Interested? Disdainful? Is she happy or sad? I’m drawn to her, but aside from her undeniable cuteness, I can’t quite decide why. It’s as though she’s cast a spell over me.
And, finally, she reminds me of a cat I knew for only a few hours and in very sad circumstances. I was drawn to create a piece in her honor. More about that in my newsletter this week (to subscribe, follow the link at the end of this blog.)
All that I've written so far is about the subject. But the technique is significant to me, too.
The majority of the work on this piece is pencil.
Here’s the piece with most of the background in, but the cat—at this stage—is pencil only. I began my work on a piece of drawing paper. I used 0.5mm lead mechanical pencils with H, HB, 2B, and 4B leads. By using the softer leads, I worked this drawing farther than I usually do when I’m preparing to paint. I wanted to get as close to a finished drawing as I could. (Sorry for the shadows falling across the piece when I photographed it. I admit to getting lazy when taking pics of works in progress!)
At this point, I sealed the graphite with a spray fixative—specifically, Krylon Workable Fixatif. Then I could adhere the paper to my support, which is an 8” x 10” cradled wood panel.
For the background, I decided on collage and paint. It was inspired to look through my stash of collage papers and found several interesting choices. In fact, it was during that task that the papers suggested my color scheme.
When positioning the collage papers, I kept them at least a small distance away from the cat and then bridged the gap with acrylic paint. One of my favorite paper finds was the small white butterfly on a pale teal paper that you see in the upper left corner.
I really enjoy the contrast in ways of working that this piece invited. The drawing was tight, slow, and thought-out, whereas the background was loose, relatively quick, and suggested by the papers as I found them.
But now what to do with the cat? I knew I needed color but I also knew that I wanted the drawing to remain prominent. So I decided on washes of transparent fluid acrylic. What color, though? The cat having tabby markings pointed to gray or ginger and, for reasons I can’t articulate, I liked the gray better. But the gray fluid acrylic I have is too opaque. So I created gray by layering a few different transparent browns and Payne’s Grey. In some places on the fur there may be five or six layers.
I was happy with the results and was able to echo the pink from her nose in the rose petals falling around her.
Now for the final step: metallics! These are so fun to work with, so wonderful to see in person, and so difficult-at least for me-to photograph. But here are two attempts.
In this photo, you can get a sense, though a small one, of the gold. I used Golden fluid acrylic Iridescent Gold for the dimensional dots forming the halo around her head; to paint a few of the dots in the background, like the one above the right ear; and for the narrow ‘finger edge’ around the edge.
In this photo, which I took at an angle, your can see some of the interference gold and interference blue-green that I used in places in the background. Both these paints are also Golden fluid acrylics.
The nature of interference paints is that they’re invisible (or nearly so) when viewed straight on. It’s only when viewed at an angle that the metallic shows. I absolutely love both the metallic and interference paints. For me, they really make a piece. But the problem with them is that they’re so hard to photograph. For this reason, I think it would be difficult to sell them on-line (if that’s what I wanted to do) for this.
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