Saturday, January 29, 2011

Background for Maine Coon




I recently received a commission to paint a Maine Coon cat named Thomas. He is one gorgeous boy! After trying three different supports out, I have settled on Pastelbord. What a surprise.

I got a white 9x12 piece of pastelbord out, pulled out my Neocolors II, and began the background. I applied quite a few layers of the Neocolors, wetting the colors to blend them in between layers. Most of the time I just apply more color without waiting for the previous layer underneath to dry. My problem is that the layers tend to dry too quickly, so I tried to keep the support a bit wet without removing or dulling down any color.

I started off by using a large Aquaflo brush, but had a lot of trouble getting the water to flow out the way it is supposed to. I quickly switched over to a 1" Creative Mark Fundamentals wash brush. I kept the brush damp all the time and went over and over the painting in a circular motion, blending and reblending the colors using a sfumato technique until I got the effect I wanted. The result is the photo above. It took me a couple of hours to get this much done.

The Neocolors I used are; light grey, steel grey, dark grey, and white. The white was only for toning down and lightening up an area.

Next is the sketch and then beginning with the colored pencils.