Cat 48

Cat 48 Cat in box lid.
Acrylic on canvas. 14" x 11".
sold.

Lizzy napping in a patch of sun in the window, in a cardboard box lid.
I have been hard pressed to find the time to work on paintings for the past month, being occupied with continuous clerical tasks. Having trouble maintaining a focus on what I'm doing- my brain keeps multitasking like an application running in the background, pulling me away into other tasks.

On this painting I decided to work with a tube of "Indian Red" bought months ago which I couldn't figure out how to use successfully. It turns out to be red oxide, a very concentrated, opaque, intense color which instantly dominates any other color.
The cool based earth tone was at odds with the palette range I usually work with.
In the end, most of the red was covered or incorporated into more familiar colors. I do see some good possibilities for using it as a base with blue tones and cool pinks. This will take more experimenting.

Cat 47

I decided to rework this painting (above) about three years later (see the original below).
I never did locate the source photo I had worked from, but was able to find a very similar pose, although with different lighting. Aside from adjusting a few angles and proportions, the main difference was working with mixing color using only yellow, red, blue and white; and using more neutral colors. I still need to resolve the feet, and chair surface...

Cat 47: Fat Lizzy.
Acrylic on canvas. 14" x 11".

Lizzy had her annual check up with her vet last week, and was informed she needed to loose a little weight. So here is fat Lizzy.
Her new diet is not difficult-  I'm weaning her off the high carb dry food she has constant access to, and substituting canned food, with a higher moisture content. Until she gets the hang of it, I am having to dish out food every few hours. After a week she has already learned to eat more at less frequent intervals, so I think this will work out over time.

I started this painting yesterday, and it feels about finished to me. I have a few things yet to resolve, mostly in the foreground.

Cat 46

Cat 46: (above) Rework in progress... stay tuned.This is likely going to end up the classic scenario of not reconcilable, due to a poor composition. But I still feel compelled to keep trying. At least the landscape portion is showing signs of improvement!

 Cat 46: Mackerel Tabby and Mackerel Sky
Acrylic on canvas.  20" x 16".

This is "Mr Kitty" cleaning his feet on my porch railing in the morning sun. I have no idea where this cat lives or what his real name is. He is a large cat who has been visiting me for years, dropping by in the early morning for about 15 minutes, then continues on his daily routine.
   I started this painting at the end of last month, roughing it in with the intention of working more later after I got back home from visiting my father. Dad died later that afternoon, and it was weeks before I got back to working on the painting again.

  I was interested in the cloud patterns in the sky, the coat patterns on the cat and the patterns of the light hitting the foreground. I also wanted to focus more than I usually do on the landscape. I want to get more comfortable with landscape painting- I need to learn how to use brushstrokes more effectively.
   This is striking me as too visually busy. I have too much going on overall, and would benefit from letting some areas be less active. I never did resolve how to handle the foreground after numerous attempts at adjusting the contrast and saturation- it continued to look disjointed.
But I do like the stripes.

Cat 45

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?

Cat 44

Cat 44: Karma.
Acrylic on Masonite. 12" x 14".

This is Karma, a cat with a distinctive personality who lived next door to me for a few years before moving to a different state with his owner.
He's built like a miniature lion, with the exception of not having a tail. And sensitive about being a Manx- he did not appreciate being laughed at. Karma visited nearly every day, first to the garden for some fresh catnip, after which he would wander into the house to say hello, and inspect.

I have a lot of  pre-cut 12 x 12's to use, and finding it it takes some thought to come up with a good composition that works well with that format. It often seems to fall short of what I am trying to do, and I end up adjusting some elements to get them to fit. So I was quite pleased to discover this 12 x 14 cut piece in my stash of boards.

I got about halfway through this painting before realizing I was being too heavy handed with the dark areas, so I wiped off what I was able to get off, used sand paper to take off the rest, then applied another thin coat of gesso to establish a fresh surface to work on.
This time I used chromium oxide green to build a lot of the shadow areas instead of the deep burnt umber, and like the effect a lot better.

I initially intended to have a lot more detail in the background which was a mix of gravel and dirt, but decided it worked much better to leave it soft focused and vague.

Cat 43

Cat 43: Toby, Calico and Sonja.
Acrylic on Masonite. 12" x 12".

This is an attempt at an illustration for a children's story being written by a friend, who supplied three separate pictures- one of each cat in the story. The interesting challenge was to incorporate them together in a convincing arrangement. I got the impression that in reality, none of these cats would have come with five feet of each other.
All three photo's were taken at slightly different angles, so keeping the perspective consistent took some manipulation. I wanted the two lesser characters smaller, looser and in the background, with the main character larger and more detailed in the foreground.
Once again, I am having major problems with the straight on frontal view of the cat face. I thought I had it all figured out, using a ruler to double check the relative proportions, and ended up struggling with this one small area of face for over a week.

A better shot of the cat was provided the other day, and I immediately saw the problem; I had given him a Burmese type head structure instead of a longer, more masculine Egyptian type muzzle.
It is still not quite right, but much closer to what I wanted to see this time.I may fiddle with this a bit more, after it has a chance to dry out and set up.

The black and white cat had an interesting foreshortened angle, which I had to get "creative" with to get it to fit in the space, and added more distortion in the process. I could keep diddling with this indefinitely to see how it could be improved, but its time to move on.

This was probably nuts, trying to get these three into a square format.

Cat 42

Cat 42, Cat Bath.
Acrylic on Masonite. 12" x 12".

Lizzy cleaning her foot, sitting on dad's old computer chair. It's her chair now, because the cat hair imbedded in the fabric is permanent- I can't get it out.

I haven't touched this painting for nearly a week, so I suppose I am done with it.

With this painting I made a point of sticking to a more limited range of colors, and softened the edges of forms more than I usually do. I am happy with the results. I like the simple diagonal forms, and the simple background.
I'm not sure I like the yellow tint in the background being the same as on the chair seat- it puts the two on the same visual plane. The yellow background wants to pull forward next to the cooler toned chair back. This flattens the whole thing.
I may rethink that, and cool down the wall in the background so it visually recedes behind the chair.
Or maybe I like the tension?