This portrait was finished back in December. It was a Christmas present for the client’s wife of their two bengal cats called Ben and Jerry. The painting was quite large at 40 x 60 cm. I received a pretty good reference photo, however the client felt the shadows and colouring was too strong. I used this photo for pose only and other photos for colouring. It was quite challenging, but it worked out pretty well at the end. The painting was too large to scan, I used my digital camera instead. I am also including scans of each of the cats head, which is more true to the colour of the actual painting.
The client had the painting framed and he was very happy with the outcome. I used a lot of detail to paint the cats faces, especially eyes, and kept the rest of the painting quite loose. It gave the portrait more perspective and brought some interest into the pose. I just love the way the cats are intertwined together, you can hardly tell where one ends and the other starts 🙂
I am now working away on my new year commissions. I still have a few paintings from December that I haven’t put up on the blog, so I will do that over the next few days. If you are thinking of commissioning your own portrait, please contact me anytime. My lead time is currently 12 weeks.