Cat 65

 Cat 65, by the window
Acrylic on canvas. 12" x 14".

 This was from a shot taken years ago in 2012- the lucky cat does not show the aging process in photos the way I do. I liked the way her head was facing the opposite direction from her body.

After spending time reworking older paintings, this painting was done with the intent of using what I learned by doing the reworks. I had this more or less completed in four short sessions, then fiddled with it off and on for months, adjusting the background (lighter, darker, intense, neutral, etc), as well as changing angles here and there... had a little fight with the table surface and perspective of box lid, and another battle with the coat color patterns.
I was irked about the placement of the box lid so tight to the bottom edge of the canvas, and resolved that by reducing the contrast on the box, allowing it to blend more with the background.

There is a solution to this, but time to move on to something else. I will come back to it later. The tabby-tortoiseshell fur is definitely a challenge.

Chanel

Chanel
Acrylic on canvas. 12" x 14".

 An attempt at painting a Shih Tzu. This is my niece's dog, cooling off on a tile floor in Rio.

I limited the colors to the three primaries- Cadmium Yellow Light, Cad Red Medium and Ultramarine Blue. The floor was laid in as a mixed orange, then scumbled over with a blue and white mix, toned down with orange added. I washed over the tiles in the back with a thin layer of raw sienna to drop the intensity and push them back more. I had hoped for more orange tones to bleed through, but didn't pull it off.
With more time, I would have worked the tiles more, soften some of the edges and beef up the different fur directions. But in general it came out okay. I was told it looked like her.

Rework of Cat 28

Rework- painting over Cat 28.
The original painting (below) was done in 2013.
I could not locate the shot I had worked from, so I found a few similar shots, and worked from those. The only area that didn't get reworked were the books on the desk. My father built that desk in the early 1960's- and I still use it.

Rework of Cat 52

Rework of Cat 52
The original (below) was done in 2013.

A few angles and proportions changed, some hard lines softened, and neutralized some colors. I think this works a lot better,

Rework of Cat 53

Rework of Cat 53.

The original (below) was done in 2013.

This is classic awkward Oscar in a weird, stiff position. I really liked the colorful quilt and hesitated painting over all the fussy detail, but couldn't take the visual chaos.
 I made adjustments to angles and proportions within the cat's body shape, and dropped the saturation/intensity of the colors. It's much less confusing to look at now.

Rework of Cat 55

Reworked painting of Cat 55.
Oscar bathing in the corner. The original painting (below) was done in 2013.

I made major proportion and angle structural adjustments to everything, and desaturated the colors to more neutral tones. It would have worked better if the paws had not been so close to the canvas edge- a little more open space down there would help relieve the visual tension.
I thought the one leg pointing at the lower right corner might cause a composition problem, but the edges of the walls seem to pull the eye back into the center. At any rate, its an improvement (I think) over the original. .

Rework of Cat 14

Rework of Cat 14-
The original was done in 2009.