Painting a Cat

 With apologies to Stephen Sondheim
("Finishing the Hat" from "Sunday in the Park with George")

Finishing the cat
How you have to finish the cat
How you watch the rest of the world
From a window
While you finish the cat

Mapping out the fur
What you feel like, planning the fur
How you feel when voices that come    
Through the window, go
But you still endure
Until there's nothing but fur.

Let's just say that this is not my happy place. It's one thing to practice painting your own cat -- with varying results.

It's another thing when a very nice woman says "Would you please paint my son's dead cat?" (It was more graciously phrased, but that was the gist of it.) I said, "I'll try." And I've been trying.  Because you can't mess up when it's someone's departed pet. You just can't.

Here's the first try.

And the second.

And the third.

So, I started with the photo and made it the size we were going for. I printed it out and turned it over and marked the back with dark pencil as thoroughly as I could.

Then I turned it back and traced with a pen over the main markings.

Voila! Basic sketch.

I have learned from several that when painting an animal, start with the eyes, because if you mess those up, you may as well start over. There's no going back. Then I did the area around the face.

Trust me, this cat is tough. There's no color to it, apart from the face and a bit of peach. Consequently, white paper and white cat aren't working together right. It looks wrong without pigment on the paper and my white doesn't show.

So, back to it.

This time I left white areas on the paper and made the gray bits much more like the fur shadowing.

And I think the eyes and face are much better. They have more soul than the other attempts.

And the good news is -- she liked it! A lot! And that just put a big old smile on my face because I'm not sure I could have done it better. First commission -- done!

And after having manipulated poor Stephen Sondheim's wonderful song, I thought I'd share the link from the wonderful "Sunday in the Park with George," with Mandy Patinkin as artist Georges Seurat, hard at work on a painting.

Look, I made a cat. Where there was never a cat.

Today's post is shared with Share Your Cup and Pink Saturday. Check out this site for lots of inspiring creative links.