Painting Kitties

“Happy is the home with at least one cat.” – Italy

My grandkids convinced mom and dad they needed a cat (or two) in their happy home. So two sweet sisters joined the family. The kids got to visit them once a week from their birth til they were old enough to leave their mamma and watched their growth as they fell in love with them. Meet Luna (left) and Penny (right).

“Even the smallest feline is a work of art.” – Leonardo da vinci (1452-1519)

They look posed for a painting portrait so I painted them! I laid down the first color washes and let them dry and then worked on the first eye and nose layers.

When those layers were dry, I began adding more detail painting to the fur.

The next step I decided to concentrate on details on one kitty at a time instead of working both at the same time.

Last step was the whiskers, which I added with a pen (both black and white) in order to get the very fine lines.

After I had completed my painting, my granddaughter wanted to paint them as well. I let her look at my series of photos of the steps I took and she was able to follow them very well with only a few hints given by me. Here is her final painting:

The kitties have many similarities, but subtle differences in coloring. As my granddaughter was painting she exclaimed that she had never noticed while playing with the kitties that Penny had a black line across the top of her nose. I always had to look at their faces to see which had the darker fur between the eyes to know which was which. Now as the cats have grown more it’s easier to tell who’s who- Luna is the smaller cat of the two.

I tried doing a close-up of each of their faces.

Before Christmas I found some blank wooden kitty head ornaments to paint. We each picked a cat to paint with acrylics. My granddaughter still says she prefers watercolor to acrylic paints. I agree with her. It’s so much harder to get the blends and textures with acrylics.