Cat Oil Painting - Tish by Diane Irvine Armitage

I really enjoyed working on today's painting.  This was painted from a picture I took of my little Tishy one day when she was curious about a display I was photographing and had to get in the middle of the shot.  I like how her eyes are very close to the background color which is the color of my back bedroom where I took the picture.  The golden eyes and background are wonderful with the overall black of the Morticia : : - )

I have been very inspired lately by several really great artists.  I am a big fan of Daniel Gerhartz's work and I bought several of his painting DVDs, which are excellent.  I highly recommend them!  I found a DVD of him and another artist painting a portrait at the same time and through that video I discovered Scott Burdick, whose work I really admire as well.  And through Scott Burdick, I discovered his wife, Susan Lyon.  I purchased her book and it is a really good book because she shows a lot of closeups of her brushwork which is to die for - very sketchy and wonderful.  Today I watched one of Susan's videos on Painting Dolls so I could see how she goes about getting that lovely loose, sketchy quality to her work.   Her video is excellent!

With today's painting of Tishy, I really loosened up and went for the sketchy approach, using some of Susan Lyon's suggestions in her video.  Especially about how to hold the brush.  It really made a big difference in my work.  Original oil painting on archival gessoboard, 11 by 14 inches.  I'm going to paint this same pose of Tish REALLY BIG.  That is this weekend's project.

You can find this painting on my Daily Paintworks Gallery Page HERE.