Feline Friends

Two feline friends are the subject of my latest commission. The portrait is an A4 pastel on cream Daler Rowney Ingres Pastel Paper, the shade of which was tricky to choose as I wanted both cats to stand out equally. I considered a mid beige so the ginger cat would be lighter and the blacker cat darker but decided their eyes might disappear and it might not work, so light cream was selected. I opted for two photos where the cats could be drawn as if they might be side by side and sketched their basic shapes before mapping out the ginger markings on both cats. This initial application of pastel sits on the paper surface and looks very grainy so I smoothed it using a cream pastel pencil, which you can see in the second of the series. This process is repeated using a range of colours from bright reds, oranges and yellows on the ginger cat, to brown, grey, black and even green on the coat as well as the eyes. Once I was happy with the balance of tones I flicked in some white whiskers and moved onto blocking in the really dark areas on the other cat. I used cream, dark brown and grey pastel underneath the shiny areas of the coat and flicked in all sorts of colours and shades to keep the markings vibrant. I hope I've captured them!