Sunshine

Another black cat in my series of paintings of cats from Petfinder.  This kitty is named Sunshine.  No, not Midnight or Shadow but a bright, happy name - Sunshine!  I enjoyed working with the dark blues to get the mid-tones and the lighter blues for the lighter tones.  Until I varnish this, the darkest darks, which are the black gesso showing through, just don't photograph nice and dark.  But then there's no taking a picture once it is varnished because of the shine off the varnish.  So what's a poor girl to do?  : - )  So just use your imagination and picture those flat darks all deep black and shiny!

This painting is available here at my Daily Paintworks Gallery page.  Oh and my painting from yesterday of the extreme closeup black cat is featured on Daily Paintworks Facebook page as one of their paintings of the day!  Fun!

Ace

I wanted to paint an extreme closeup of a black cat with the emphasis on the eyes.  I put as few brushstrokes as I could, leaving the black gesso to show in the darkest areas.  This cat is Ace, another darling from Petfinders.

You can see this painting and my other cat portraits here on my Daily Paintworks Gallery page.

Harry

Today's painting is of Harry, another of Joanna's cats.  I just love to paint these cute tabby cats!  I love the markings around their eyes, like eye makeup : - )

First I sketch out the face with pencil on a black gessoed panel.  Then paint in the dabs of paint.

Here is the adorable Harry ...

 And my version of him ...

You can see Harry and his sister Lulu and my other paintings here on Daily Paintworks.

Lulu

Today's kitty portrait is of my sister Nancy's friend Joanna's cat Lulu, a pretty grey kitty!  I love the look in Lulu's eyes, I hope I got that across.  Sure is fun to paint cat faces!  Here is the adorable Lulu ...

 And my "interpretation" of her : - )

 You can see Lulu and my other cat paintings on my Daily Paintworks Gallery page here.

Creepy Still Life Painting - Antique Baby Doll Head on a Book

I sell creepy antiques and oddities for a living and I love to paint.  So what better still life subject than a creepy antique baby doll head?!  Not your usual apples and vases!  I like to paint as loose as I can and this little painting has some nice brushstroke bits.  I painted in oil today because I knew I would need to do some blending.

This little night gallery style painting is available on my Daily Paintworks website here.

Black and White Cat Value Study Paintings

Today's shelter cat is Freddie and I liked all three pictures of Freddie so I decided to do three value studies of him.  I am watching some of Peggi Kroll Robert's videos and she is real big on value and value studies.  Her series of video painting lessons are the BEST.  I highly recommend them!

I painted these 5 x 7 acrylic paintings on canvas board with a black gesso ground and tried to do them fairly quickly.  Here are the preliminary sketches on the boards ...

And here is the photo of Freddie and the finished painting.

You can find it at my Daily Paintworks Gallery page here.

Elfie

Well, today's painting was successful for me because I was trying to simplify my values down to three or so.  My value study sketch was cracking me up because it looked just like a werewolf (and still does somewhat) - ha!  Anyway, today was a good painting day.  I can tell because I used only two pieces of paper towel, so that means getting it right and not dithering away on it.  Here's Elfie, today's shelter kitty.  I thought it would be fun to paint some black cats to get in the Halloween mood : - )

And here's the werewolf like sketch of cute Elfie ...

And finally the 6x6 acrylic painting ...

You can find the painting here at Daily Paintworks.