Cat 52

(above: rework 3 years later)

Cat 52, Oscar on the bed
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

This has got to be the "girliest" looking  piece I have ever done.

The woman who moved into the room my father had occupied came with a large senior cat named Oscar. She has arranged and decorated the room very differently from how my father had it set up, which makes it a bit easier for me to visit there. The room looks quite feminine now and Oscar, weighing in at 19 pounds, looks a bit incongruous lounging on her pink coverlet. So much for Oscar's tough guy image.

This was an interesting challenge with all the bright, saturated colors. Initially I had left the patterns very loose, but that looked odd with the cat being detailed, and I ended up going all fussy with the quilt.
I liked all the angles and the concentrated patches of color on the left, and the visual relief of the more solid area on the right. Initially, the image was very flat with the saturated colors, and adding darker areas didn't help to establish much depth. The solution was to tone down some bright areas by mixing gray into the colors. The broad area of pink did not incorporate in until I thought to add some yellow into it, which finally pulled it together.
I tend to isolate colors which can result in a fragmented, disjointed appearance. Integrating the colors gives much better unity.