Grumpy Cat

So, I've been trying to get better at painting animals.  I love cats, so it made sense that I would paint a few of them.  I've tried to paint animals in the past and have always been disappointed in how I painted fur.  At that time I was trying hard to make photorealistic paintings.   It was all ok, but thats not really how I want to paint.  I want to give the impression of a thing.  When you look at one of my paintings I want you to get the emotion and feeling that I put into it out of it.  If the painting looks exactly like the object it was taken, great, if it doesn't so be it.

So, here I am painting this cat, and wanting to convey to you a bit of grumpiness from this cat without explicitly painting a perfect cat.  I think you get a bit of that from this cat.

Want to see how I painted it?  Check out the video below.  Want me to paint something for you?  Curios how someone would paint something.  I'd love to take a crack at whatever you can dream up.  Leave me a comment or shoot me an email. Thanks for the quick read, and enjoy the video.

Another Portrait

This painting for sale 9x12 $30

First off, I think this looks a bit odd because I didn't paint quite enough of his neck, but what the hay.  I painted this in the way I am gonna try to do all my paintings from now on.  I got the paper wet, and then let the paint do what it do on the paper.  I actually have about 5 or 6 layers of paint on most of this.  I don't know that I'll be using that many layers all the time, but I'll definitely be using two or three.

I didn't want to overdo the beard and hair for fear of doing too much too it.  I still might go back and draw in some individual hairs with a pen, but basically, what you see is what you are always gonna get.  I might go back and make the eyebrows a bit bigger too.  But again, I might just wanna leave it this way.

Here is the picture that I started with.  Sorry, hat I forgot to take it as just a drawing.  You can see part of the first layer of paint, though.

Here is the picture mostly done.  Interestingly, you can see that I took the picture with his beard just a bit wet. As the paint dries it lightens up, so you can see that it is much darker here.  Also, he looks a bit devilish with no eyeballs.

I had a great time painting this one, hope you have a great time viewing it.