Cat in a Hat Painting

How to turn a photo of my cat Morpheus into a finished painting! 

Its been a while since I've done a cat in hat acrylic painting so heres a little step by step behind the scenes on how I create my paintings.

After a bit of photo manipulating in Photoshop I was ready to start! I hate working on a white canvas so always paint over the white first, for my cats in hats paintings red is usually my favourite colour to use for the background as it is a good contrast for the black cat. You can just see a very rough sketch on the canvas.

 The first layer of paint. I usually start with the white and then work my way over the rest of the painting blocking in all the basic colours and covering the canvas.

A few more layers and some details are starting to emerge,

A bit more white added to the fur and to give it a bit of texture. I never worry about brush marks as I like to see them in the finished painting. Also a bit more detail in the goggles and top hat. The top hat is painted prussian blue to stand out from the black of the cat and also as I love using prussian blue!

Again more details.

Almost finished. A few highlights picked out and of course the whiskers!

My very gunky takeaway paint tray palette which keeps my paint wet and my lovely new paintbrushes which I got for Christmas!

Topper Kitty

The finished acrylic painting!

A Few Other Cats in Hats Paintings!

Clare xx

Cats!

Well it has been a bit of a mad week and you can see why! This is Morpheus the dream kitten and he was just so cute I couldn't resist him!

I've been inspired to do lots of paintings of him but he does like to help usually by chewing the paintbrush!

Black & White Kitten

He doesn't stay still for very long so getting photos to work from has been a bit difficult!

Here is he is with his favourite toy a rattly ball that he likes to get you to throw and he will fetch it back for more (I'm sure he thinks he is a dog!)

Today I decided to do a few watercolour paintings of him until he pushed a full jar of water into my lap and decided my watercolour paints were a new fun toy!

Sleepy Kitten

Kitten Charm

Kitten & Ball

I've also been doing a bit of linocut printing as he looked so cute in this pose!

Kitten Play

Kitten Cute

  I can see much more kitten themed artwork to come!

Turkish Cats

I've recently got back from a 12 day holiday touring round Turkey. I had an amazing time and ended up with over 1250 photos! I can't wait to start working on my photos and making some really atmospheric prints soon but while I was sorting through my photos I discovered I'd taken a huge amount of cat photos most of them asleep on some ancient monument!

Ephesus Cat

ACEO Snoozy Cat

 I couldn't resist painting a few ACEOs of these cats. ACEOs are very collectable tiny artworks - Art Cards Editions or Originals and are 2.5 x 3.5" in size. They are a great size for painting all the photos that I normally would never use in my larger artwork but just need to be painted somewhere!

ACEO Serene Cat

ACEO Cat Sleep

ACEO Listening Cat

ACEO Cat Doze

Wherever I go I usually pick up a cat or two, heres me making friends at Troy!

 

Also just had to paint the nesting storks that were nesting all the over the columns!

ACEO Nesting Stork

Clare xx

Animal Art

I'm getting slightly obsessed with painting animals at the moment!

Sadly we lost my gran a few months ago and while going through all the many letters, photos etc we found lots of the drawings I had given her over the years, many in little frames where she had displayed them throughout her bungalow. Every one of them was of an animal so I think my obsession must have started at a very early age!

Most of my early drawings and paintings have disappeared so it is nice to have a few to look back on. Luckily even then I signed and dated everything so I now have a unique record of my work.

This little horse I drew when I was aged 12.

Another horse from when I was 12.

Little doggie from when I was 13.

My dog Kasia from when I was 18 (she did have a lump on the side of her face, its not just a wonky drawing!)

 I'm still painting dogs and horses, although cats do feature quite heavily now! 

 

"Nervous Kitten"

 

"Black and White Cat Sit"

 

"Pony Pose"

And my painting style is a bit more dramatic!

"Sleepy"

 

"Ginger Cat"

"Elephant Calm"

 But I don't think my style has changed too much over the years and I'm still obsessing over animals!

Clare xx

Cats

My boyfriend calls me the mad cat woman!

Nearly a year ago my 20 year old cat died and I was completely devastated. I'd had her from the age of 3 so was lost without her. Over time, knowing the coast was now clear, all the neighbourhood cats started creeping into the garden and having some cat food left I didn't want to waste it so started feeding them (and encouraging them in!)

Zack

My favourite is Zack, he is a huge black and white cat that I have seen around the street for years but only recently discovered his history. He belongs to the fencing yard a few doors down and was found as a tiny kitten in a bag of sand that was delivered there and they have kept him ever since! He looks a big bruiser but is a little softy although he loves swiping at any hands left dangling! He has a rip in his ear and only one canine tooth left but loves being tickled under his chin!

Just don't tickle his tummy or you will have no hands left!

He goes from house to house looking cute and asking for food when the yard isn't open and has a regular appointment with the house opposite for his Sunday lunch leftovers!  

He used to love sitting on our bin in the sun and flirting with my cat through the window but she hated him and would hiss and then hide under the bed! He now comes in and has lots of food and fuss and can often be found on the sofa having his Sunday afternoon snooze! I love painting animals so thought I would do a watercolour of him and it was so popular that I just can't stop! I now have so many paintings of him (you can see where the mad part comes in!) and have now started printing him everywhere! He even has his own range of lavender scented bags but don't tell him as it would ruin his street cred!

His favourite toy a piece of string!

Pet Portraits

My Commission!

I love painting animals and have painted pet portraits for friends and family and always really enjoyed it but last week I had my first proper commission from the general public!! 

It was for a very cute border terrier for a birthday present. I had a decent photo to work from so I thought no problem this will be fun. I printed off the photo to start work and then found myelf getting distracted by something else. I sat down to start again and then something else distracted me! This went on for a while until I realised I was actually scared of starting the painting and kept putting it off! I think because it was a proper commission and a present at that it was scaring me from even putting brush to paper and its always daunting seeing that white piece of paper looking back at you! Normally I will just dive in there and see what happens and if it all goes wrong well it doesn't really matter. But this one had to look like the dog and I had to please someone other than myself!

 

Luckily once I started painting it all went well and I really enjoyed painting her and hopefully next time won't seem quite so scary and I'm actually looking forward to seeing what my next commission will be! I've put on my advert for the pet portraits any animal accepted so I'm half expecting a spider or lizard one day which could be quite interesting!

Clare xx