Little Amare is a gorgeous Abyssinian Cat. I am in love with him :)!
I painted this on paper using oils.
The first stage was the drawing. Unfortunately I didn’t take a photograph of this stage. I drew a quick sketch of Amare in pencil on acid free paper primed three times front and back with gesso. Prior to drawing, I painted the paper with a thin wash of raw sienna to create a warm mid-tone ground.
The next stage was the umber-painting stage. Here I only used burnt umber thinned with turpentine. I worked quickly to establish the main values and sculptural elements.
I waited a day for the umber underpainting to dry, and then progressed to the grayscale stage. I premixed 7 values of grey including a high key pure titanium white and a pure ivory black. I used a separate brush for each value. The painting in this stage is far more detailed than in the umber underpainting stage. I paid particularly close attention to the eye. I also focussed on the ticking – ticking is a hallmark of the Abyssinian cat breed, so it’s important to include it. Not to slavishly replicate every strand of ticking, but rather to paint enough to suggest to the eye that the ticking is there.
Also notice how the warm underpainting is still visible through the grayscale painting. This gives the image a lively glow.
I waited about a week for the grayscale layer to dry before progressing to the next stage shown below. The next stage involved a combination of glazing and direct painting. I glazed the dark sections of the cute boy’s coat with burnt umber. To achieve the luminosity on his aural membrane I painted directly using light red mixed with zinc white – a very, very thin layer. I used cadmium yellow, raw sienna, and titanium white to correct his jowls and his mouth. To reinforce the shape of his mouth, I used a very thin application of ivory black to create a single mouth line.
I also painted in the whiskers with titanium white.
Corrections were made to the shape of his nose by painting in the background. I also softened the edges of his fur against the background to give him a less harsh appearance.]
I did not alter the eye in any way.
The final stage involved reinforcing the first umber glaze with another glaze of burnt umber. glazing pushes back the lights, so after glazing it’s important to bring back the highlights by painting over them with a lighter colour.
The eye was not glazed. I did reinforce the highlight at the front of the eye with a thin application of titanium white.
And here is the finished painting! Isn’t he cute?
