Stil Life With Bicolor Cat - Part 3

The epic saga of "Still Life with Bicolor Cat--The Watercolor" continues! This pose of artist model Buttonwillow is my reference photo, but I continue to take advantage of "artistic license" whenever I feel the need...

To see what I've done so far visit these posts:

Part 1
Part 2

My next step is to define the frame with goldtones. I use a wonderful hue called quinacridone yellow/gold which is a deep rich transparent amber gold color...

Here's where my "license" comes in again--I decide to keep the tabletop in the same color family because it will give a nice balance to the composition and it will be a nice contrast to the blue pitcher...

The blue pitcher is the next step. I want to be sure to "save" those little white spots of light that will make the surface look as if it's shiny. If you don't have masking fluid here is a great little trick: I indicate lightly in pencil where the "whites" are and then put a big W in each spot so I will remember not to put any paint there... The W's will be erased later...

To make my blues more interesting, I'm going to do a little underpainting in rose and quin. gold, then dampen the rest of the pitcher area, carefully going around the saved white spots and keeping them dry so that color will not bleed into them.

Then while the paper is still damp, I add different shades of blue and let them flow together, looking at my reference photo to see where the blues need to be darker or lighter...

As the blues dry but are still slightly damp, I drop in more paint wherever it needs a little more intensity or definition...Artistic license again: I decide to make the blues much deeper than the reference photo. And see how important it was to save those white spots?

Next step in the epic production: Buttonwillow! Coming soon to a Cat Lady blog near you!

Still Life With Bicolor Cat --Let's Get Some Paint On That Paper!

"Still Life with Bicolor Cat" has been sitting on a back burner for a week or two, but I was able to make a little more progress this week. Thanks to the input of readers a few weeks ago, this pose of artist model Buttonwillow was chosen for the composition:

You can see the preparations for the painting here:
Step 1


I use transparent, professional-grade watercolor paints and Arches 140-lb cold press paper. Using high quality materials makes a HUGE difference when painting in watercolor--you get richer colors, better blending, less "muddy" colors, etc...It's definitely worth the splurge!

To continue, I re-dampened the paper with a wash of water with just a tiny trace of New Gamboge Yellow mixed in. Gamboge (and most other yellows) are non-staining and lift off of the paper easily when blotting . So not only does this give the overall painting a warm glow, it also ensures that most colors I put on top of it will lift off much more easily if I need to "erase"--even staining colors like the Thalo family.


In the next step, I painted shadows next to the picture frame and behind Buttonwillow with a mix of blue and rose to make lavenders. I mix a lot of colors right on the paper instead of on the palette. You get livelier mixes that way as opposed to flat, uniform color...

Even though the tulips will be purple overall, I am painting the first layer with reds and yellows intermingled, which will make the purples much more interesting when I go back and paint layers on top.

Next I've mixed colors right onto the damp paper again, mixing thalo blue and new gamboge yellow in a streaky sort of way and letting them blend into interesting shades of green: I'll go back later and add contrast to define individual leaves...

That's all for this edition...Stay tuned!

Still Life With Bicolor Cat - Step One

There is great excitement in the studio this week as I've started work on a new watercolor painting. Thanks to the input of readers last month, this pose of artist model Buttonwillow was chosen for the composition:

First I sketched out the basic composition on a separate piece of paper. I don't want to sketch directly on the (expensive) watercolor paper because when I sketch, there will be lots of erasing and re-working involved, and that will ruin the surface of the watercolor paper.

Something that I love about the creative process is what we call "artistic license". I decided simplify the table and to extend it horizontally to give the composition a strong but uncomplicated foundation at the bottom. I also removed one of the tulips so that more of the painting in back would show, and I extended Buttonwillow's tail by un-curling it a bit.

With the help of my studio assistant, I traced the composition onto tracing paper After re-tracing the lines on the BACK of the tracing paper, I flipped it right side up on top of the watercolor paper, and went over the lines one more time to transfer the image onto the watercolor paper beneath.

I dampened the back of the watercolor paper, then taped it to my drawing board. I dampened the front of the paper, then set it aside to dry. This is called "stretching" -- the paper swells up slightly, then shrinks as it dries, making the paper nice and taut and less likely to warp or buckle. It also "primes" the paper and makes it more receptive to water-based paints and will absorb the paint more evenly...


NEXT... the underpainting! Stay tuned...