Cat 45: Toby Chester in the woods.
Acrylic on canvas. 12" x 14".
(sold)
Its been a tough month of family crisis erupting, and as a result I have not been productive. After dabbling at this for a couple weeks and am at a loss where to take it. It may not be finished, but I think I am done with it for now. I was still frustrated over not getting the face of the orange cat in #43 correct, and had to try again after receiving a better shot to work from.
And, as it turned out, it was the tail that I was really interested in.
Initially I had the face so large it was filling most of the canvas. I ended up removing as much paint as possible, covered up what I couldn't get off, and started over. This time I free-handed directly with the paint, instead of drawing first. This worked much better.
I was so focused on the cat that I gave no thought to the background and ended up with a vertical problem. And no clue about what to do with the rest of the canvas. I went through numerous trials of different backgrounds before I opted for the trees. I initially thought adding more verticals would be a disaster, but it worked surprisingly well. And, I've been wanting to paint trees anyway.
Once again I did not allow enough space around the subject- which still feels crammed in to me- and had to retrofit the cat back in. Why do I keep doing this?
I just got the news of daddy's death. No real shock and still settling in. I seem to be having waves of sadness hitting me now and a focus on finishing up a few urgent things so I can travel soon. This was already my plan but now I must move on it faster. Decided to check on your blog since I knew you ad be working on some cat paintings. I really like this one. The trees work very well and blends well with the expressive tail.
ReplyDeleteI have looked at this again and still really like it.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I like it better now than I did at first.
ReplyDeleteI think what happens is I become disenchanted when the painting veers off in a different direction than I had planned, and I end up fighting with it instead of being flexible about the process. I probably need to rethink equating goal achievement with success.
I just saw this again and it does grow on you. I guess it is the tail and the trees in the background that are catching my attention.
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