Black Cat Art & Oil Painting
Hey again!
I know…it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything! But, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy…
Awhile ago, I’d joined a group of artists that love painting as much as I do called Painting the Old Way. This means no digital effects on the artwork and no digital paintings. It’s purely paint on canvas or whatever you’re painting it on.
Well, to make a long story short, they recently had a contest there again and the subject had to be either animal, marine, or bird. So, I thought why not? I’ll give it a whirl…
I only had a few days to get it done since yes, I still work at a 9-5 job. I’ve never ever gotten a painting done in a few days, but I thought it worth the try.
And I did it! I got it done in time and did not too bad in the contest either. I didn’t win, but was still at least in the top finishers…so, to me at least that’s a win!
I’ve never entered a contest before, so I’m pretty happy with the results…
Anyhoo, here’s what it first looked like…
*Updated this post a bit on November 7, 2016 just to fix a few things I didn’t like…the featured image wasn’t working on the site here too well as it was shown cut off in the post snippets! So, I had to crop the picture quite a bit and the one you see above isn’t the whole painting.*
The final image is towards the end, so please keep reading!
The First Sketch Idea for The Black Cat Painting…
Well, I thought about it a bit and figured nope….I want it to be different, so I came up with this one, which I didn’t take a pic of until I’d started the underpainting…
Yeah, I did it again…forgot to stop and take a picture first! Sorry about that, but I think you can see the pencil lines under the paint…
Second Sketch & the Underpainting…
Outlining the Eyes in Black Acrylic…
Paint it Black!
Adding Details & Adding to the Background Color…
In the next image of The Black Cat Oil Painting I added yellow to the eyes…and a hint of green and tan. I also added a bit of white and blue to the background in a very thin layer…
Adding More White and Blue to the Background & Finally The Black Cat is Done!
Z
Whew! What a ride it was…
between working on the painting here and working my job and taking the pics I did remember to take…among all the other day to day stuff…
But, it was fun! I enjoyed every minute of working on this…
And, I did something I’ve never accomplished before…
Actually a couple of things I’ve never done before…
I’ve never painted a cat!
I’ve drawn them a little and colored them a couple times with pastels and colored pencil a very long time ago, but never painted one or done a black cat for that matter.
I love the color black…but, I know it can be tricky to pull it off when it comes to artwork.
Just because something is black, doesn’t exactly mean you use all black!
Actually, I didn’t even open the black oil paint I have to paint this…I rarely if ever, use it.
mixing ultramarine blue and burnt sienna made it black…plus, remember the red underpaint…that’s why I painted it red first.
I’ve never gotten a painting done in a few days!
I also usually take a rather long time to finish a painting…usually it’s more like a few months…but, not this time!
a few days to get it done is all I had and all it took to get it done and in a contest…
So, I guess it pays to follow your instincts on something…
Once I noticed the email for the contest I kept thinking about it…mind you I didn’t have long to think on it either. So, after letting it rattle around my head a bit I kept thinking that I should just do it. I know how to paint a….well, something!
So there was a bit of a snag…what should I paint for the contest? It has to be either an animal, marine life, or a bird?
Decisions….decisions!
Halloween was almost here….so, with that in mind I finally decided to paint this one… The Black Cat!
And as I’m finally posting about it, you guessed it…
It’s Halloween today!
So, I hope you have a safe and Happy Halloween!
Let me know what you think…any questions, comments? I’d love to know what you thought of The Black Cat…
And, should I add more to it or leave it as it is?
I tend to always go too far with adding more “improvements” on my artwork, so I’d love to know your opinion…call it done for good or add more details?
I know I see some things that I missed, but do you? Should I let these little details bug me or move on?
Thank you for reading, and if you enjoyed this or thought it might help inspire someone else,
Please share it… I’d appreciate it!
And, one last thing…
If you’d like to buy it as a fine art print, poster, metal print, greeting card or even as a unique design on tote bags, towels, t-shirts, pillows & many other items & choices available…
Please check it out at the following link…
