"Kitty" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold

sold

"Kitty" is for Melissa.  Sebastian, usually called Kitty, is a six-year-old flame point Siamese.  He is a rescue cat and was found by a police officer on a street of Chicago.  Melissa and her husband purchased him the day after they got married, so he is their honeymoon baby.  At the age of three, his bladder became blocked; he was close to death several times before finally going through surgery at a veterinarian hospital.  It was a traumatic time, but completely worth it.

Kitty is a scaredy cat and is slow to warm up.  He is also the sweetest cat Melissa has ever owned.  He loves to snuggle and follows her and her husband from room to room.  He talks a lot, especially when he wants food!  He is a master at finding the most comfortable place to take a nap.

The client sent me 10 photos, of which I picked this one.  I cropped and Photoshopped it, and decided which elements to keep and which to edit out.  I transferred the image to the Belgian linen panel I prepared (I use Claessens #66) with raw umber paint.

The transparent underpainting.
  

I started with the easiest colors in the opaque painting stage.

I mixing colors, I always look for the subtle warm/cool variations as well as light/dark ones of a certain color family (hue).