Daily Sketch: Fangs
Posted: May 3, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, giuseppe, ink, mimi | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat sketches, cats, ink sketch of cat sleeping 2 Comments
Sleeping With Fangs, ink © B.E. Kazmarski
There’s been a lot of this lately, lolling about on my desk. When Giuseppe turns his head upside down, his mouth falls open and I can see two little fangs. Vicious kitty. He fell deeply asleep so I had the chance to sketch him.
Not a difficult or detailed sketch, but just a note on drawing a subject in an orientation different from the way you are accustomed to seeing them. Even looking directly at him, my inner eye kept turning him right side up, and it was almost like yesterday when I was trying to draw around Mimi’s initial outline and it was confusing me.
This was done with a .35 felt-tip technical marker.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
A Gift for all Moms and Dads
Posted: May 3, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cat painting, cats, commissioned portrait, dog, dog portrait, feline artwork, original artwork, pastel, pastel painting, pet portrait, portrait, watercolor | Tags: cat artwork, cat painting, commissioned portrait, pastel portraits, pet portrait, portrait, set of portraits, watercolor portraits 1 Comment
A Mother’s Day gift: Hobbes, pastel, 12″ x 15″, 2004 © B.E. Kazmarski
Did your parents pass on to you a love of animals? Did they decide one day you needed an animal companion of your own, starting you on a lifelong path of sharing your days with cats and dogs and birds and bunnies and ferrets and any other animal that came along?
Veronica’s Tulips, watercolor, 16″ x 23″, 2008 © B.E. Kazmarski
Thank those people who gave you this gift—and I’m loosely defining mother and father because sometimes the person who shared their love of animals with you was an aunt or uncle or grandparent, or even a neighbor who rescued cats or dogs. In everyone’s life is at least one special person who shared a love of animals, and in that person’s life there is often an animal companion who is or was very special to them. Read about Shadow, Casey and Ralph and a special Mother’s Day gift from 2006.
And thinking a little less conventionally, consider a piece of custom art that also includes an animal. For “Veronica’s Tulips”, right, this pet mom got the painting for herself, and wanted both flowers and, after a lifetime of rescued Schnauzers also wanted a Schnauzer in her painting, though not to represent any individual she had lived with. This was the very natural solution.
I’m offering 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or a commissioned portrait that is booked between now and Mother’s Day—and Father’s Day as well. Portraits take up to four weeks, especially with framing and then shipping, but we can work things out with certificates and portraits that are done some time in the next two months.
About Commissioned Portrait Gift Certificates
Sample Commissioned Portrait Certificate
The certificate itself is 8.5″ x 11″ and features a collage of portrait images with the recipient’s and giver’s names, printed on parchment cover stock. The whole thing is packaged in a pocket folder and includes a brochure, a letter from me to the recipient and several business cards.The certificate package can be easily mailed or wrapped as a gift and shipped directly to your recipient.
I can also make it downloadable if you’re in a hurry.
Portrait certificates are a minimum of $125.00 because that is the minimum cost of a portrait.
Certificates are good for up to one year after issue.
Mother’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop
Use MOTHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).
Use MOTHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.
Fred and Simba © B.E. Kazmarski
Father’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop
Think guys aren’t cat daddies? I’ll be telling more about Fred and Simba, at left, in a few weeks, but trust me they aren’t the only cat and guy combinations around.
Use FATHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).
Use FATHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.
Take a look at other portraits and read other stories
Read articles here on The Creative Cat featuring current and past commissioned portraits.
Read about how I create commissioned portraits.
Purchase a gift certificate for a commissioned portrait.
Visit my website to see portraits of my cats, commissioned cats, commissioned dogs, people and a demonstration of how I put a portrait together from photos.
Commissioned Cat Portraits |
Commissioned Dog Portraits |
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Relaxing
Posted: May 2, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, charcoal, daily sketch, giuseppe, mimi | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch of two cats Leave a comment
Relaxing, charcoal pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
I’m glad someone got some work done around here today because my cats were all totally useless. So the temperature was a humid 82 degrees in mid-afternoon. I wasn’t lying around like a dishrag! But I did have two or more cats on my desk all day, and still do at this very moment. I guess they wanted me to see how miserable they were.
Mimi sits up for a brief interlude of awakeness in an entire day of sleeping on top of the same pile of mail in nearly the same position all day. For most of the time, Giuseppe used her as a pillow, at which point you couldn’t see too much of her. Giuseppe takes up enough room for two cats and tries to spread himself as far as he can go.
Even in their resting state, unless they are in a deep sleep, they move constantly. Most sketches take me less than five minutes as my goal is to challenge my observation skills and hand-eye coordination and to keep from getting mired down in details. When I sketch them as outlined figures, I rough in their approximate outline, then go from one section to another with harder lines to define the outline. When I have more figures I rough in all of them then define their heads and other features as quickly as possible.
Paws and tails and heads may move in the meantime but the light rough outline keeps me in line and unless they get up and move completely before I have enough detail I’m fine with filling in quickly from that extremely short-term memory that holds an image in my mind clearly, but only for a few minutes before it begins to fade. In this case Mimi had been initially washing her face and her head was curved down much farther and at a different angle. She sat up, so I worked on other areas of the sketch waiting to see if she would go back to washing her face. In this case the short-term memory was holding too much, and there are times when I will put the sketch aside but keep an eye on the cat in question, and even hours later catch them in the same activity and finish the section I need. She never did go back to that position, so I drew her upright position instead.
If I’ve drawn in guidelines or even begun to firm up an area and they move, I leave the lines there, and I’ll try to work them into the finished sketch. I don’t erase anything unless, when I’m done, something in the finished sketch looks too confusing to let it go, and then I’ll try my best to lighten the lines or remove them. In this case something was confusing to me while I was drawing and I had to remove prior lines. Where Mimi had been leaning forward washing her face as I described above, my prior lines kept me thinking she was crouching and I was tending to draw what I was thinking instead of what was there, that three-quarter back posture, the two alert ears, her attention turned away. I had to erase that original outline as best as I could in order to go on.
All that for this simple little sketch!
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
A Very Special Mother’s Day in 2006
Posted: May 2, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cat painting, cats, commissioned portrait, dog, dog portrait, feline artwork, original artwork, pastel, pastel painting, pet portrait, portrait, watercolor | Tags: cat artwork, cat painting, commissioned portrait, pastel portraits, pet portrait, portrait, set of portraits, watercolor portraits, watercolors of cats 5 Comments
Shadow, Casey and Ralph, watercolor, 12" x 16", 2006 © B.E. Kazmarski
Several years ago, a couple who had each had me paint portraits of their cats Dusty and DeVille as gifts for each other decided they wanted to give her mother a portrait of her mother’s dog and two cats as a Mother’s Day gift. They all shared the same love for their animal companions, and Shadow, the dog, was growing older. All the animals were rescues, adopted from shelters.
Shadow's face; Shadow was black with a lot of mahogany in his fur.
The two went about sneaking photographs from her mother and mailing them to me. The very first portrait I had done for them was a watercolor of his cat Dusty and the second a pastel of her cat DeVille, but for this portrait they chose watercolor.
Casey's face, clear stripes and yellow eyes.
Most of my portraits are pastel but I enjoy the break when I the commission is a different medium. I looked forward to it, studying the photos and visualizing the colors and the brushes I’d use for fur and stripes and animal eyes and noses, seeing the brush strokes on the watercolor paper.
Ralph, deep orange and white, and a little timid.
They gave her the portrait in my studio
When portraits are gifts, I am rarely present for the giving but in this case they decided to present it here because they wanted her mother to meet me. She actually had no idea why she was coming to this stranger’s house, just appreciating the day out with her daughter and son-in-law.
I had the framed portrait on my easel in the corner covered with a silk scarf I keep for the occasion. This was several years ago and I now work upstairs, but I have always kept an easel in the corner of my “office” downstairs, the room intended to be a living room into which you enter, for presentation and display of current work. At the right time of day you can see right into the room so I’ve always been careful when people were coming to visit their portraits that they couldn’t see them before they even came into my house.
DeVille, pastel, 10" x 12", 2005 © B.E. Kazmarski
They introduced me and my household of cats, and we talked about our pets while we had snacks and iced tea. Then I slipped into the kitchen and they took over, leading their mother to the easel and letting her know the purpose of the visit, pulling the scarf off the portrait so she could see Shadow, Casey and Ralph. I re-entered the room; it was a wonderful moment to share with the three of them.
They were sure her mother would love a portrait of her companions, and I knew if her mother was anything like the couple I had gotten to know there was no better Mother’s Day gift—not only recognizing and sharing her mother’s love for her pets, but also the gift the daughter had obviously inherited from her mother, a loving and generous heart and compassion for people and animals.
Detail of DeVille.
A Mother’s Day Special, and Father’s Day too
Did your parents pass on to you a love of animals? Did they decide one day you needed an animal companion of your own, starting you on a lifelong path of sharing your days with cats and dogs and birds and bunnies and ferrets and any other animal that came along?
Thank those people who gave you this gift—and I’m loosely defining mother and father because sometimes the person who shared their love of animals with you was an aunt or uncle or grandparent, or even a neighbor who rescued cats or dogs. In everyone’s life is at least one special person who shared a love of animals, and in that person’s life there is often an animal companion who is or was very special to them.
I’m offering 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or a commissioned portrait that is booked between now and Mother’s Day—and Father’s Day as well. Portraits take up to four weeks, especially with framing and then shipping, but we can work things out with certificates and portraits that are done some time in the next two months.
About Commissioned Portrait Gift Certificates
Sample Commissioned Portrait Certificate
The certificate itself is 8.5″ x 11″ and features a collage of portrait images with the recipient’s and giver’s names, printed on parchment cover stock. The whole thing is packaged in a pocket folder and includes a brochure, a letter from me to the recipient and several business cards.The certificate package can be easily mailed or wrapped as a gift and shipped directly to your recipient.
I can also make it downloadable if you’re in a hurry.
Portrait certificates are a minimum of $125.00 because that is the minimum cost of a portrait.
Certificates are good for up to one year after issue.
Mother’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop
Use MOTHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).
Use MOTHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.
Father’s Day Discounts in my Etsy Shop
Use FATHERSPORTRAIT10 to receive 10% off the purchase of a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait (we will discuss the portrait and I will give you an estimate).
Use FATHERSDAY10 to receive 10% off the purchase of Mother’s Day gifts, which may include a portrait certificate or of the cost of a commissioned portrait.
Take a look at other portraits and read other stories
Read articles here on The Creative Cat featuring current and past commissioned portraits.
Read about how I create commissioned portraits.
Purchase a gift certificate for a commissioned portrait.
Visit my website to see portraits of my cats, commissioned cats, commissioned dogs, people and a demonstration of how I put a portrait together from photos.
| Commissioned Cat Portraits |
Commissioned Dog Portraits |
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Minding Their Own Business
Posted: May 1, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, jelly bean, mewsette | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch of two cats 6 Comments
Minding Their Own Business, charcoal © B.E. Kazmarski
Sometimes, this is all we see.
I like the times when they are going about their business without me involved. Jelly Bean is curled, sleeping, at the top of the steps where the sun had been shining, briefly awakened by Mewsette as she climbs the steps and rounds the corner into my bedroom. No faces, no interaction with me, they are just being house cats finding their afternoon nap spots.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Mimi’s Sunbath
Posted: April 30, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cats, daily sketch, mimi | Tags: cat art, cat sketches, cats, ink and watercolor, sketch of cat, watercolor, watercolor pencil 2 Comments
Mimi's Sunbath, ink and watercolor pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
Mimi enjoys the warmth of the sun on her one side, and the reflection of it from the cabinet on her other.
I really liked this as an ink sketch and almost left it with just Mimi, but when I had looked at Mimi in this very spot I envisioned an ink drawing with watercolor washes. I began the sketch on watercolor paper, and so I finished it. I like it just as much.
This has both deep shadows and bright highlights, and both direct and reflected light, a challenge for me in ink, for sure! But while Mimi did move her head to face front, look up at me and look behind herself, she sat for long enough for me to get the light and shadow on her torso sketched in with pen, then a bit of watercolor pencil scribbled on top.
When I begin with a new medium I often visualize in it for days as I grow accustomed to it, so I’m not surprised to have two sketches in a row in the same medium and style, after yesterday’s Kelly on the Windowsill. I am growing accustomed to these watercolor pencils, though I think I’m going to allow myself a wider brush than the No. 4 round to see how it dissolves and spreads the paint from my sketchy pencil lines.
I absolutely love drawing in ink, though I’m constantly disappointed in the pens I can get now, the marker style. They are so easy to use, but I seem to wear the tip dry and need to give it a break every minute or so, and I don’t like to stop in the middle of a sketch to wait for the pen to resaturate. I solved it here by having several pens on hand in the same sizes. I have various fountain-style technical pens but I don’t leave ink in them and I don’t think Mimi would sit still while I run upstairs and fill one or two. I also have dip-style pen nibs and bottles of ink, but that has its challenges outside of my studio. I’m going to find one of the fountain-style drawing pens I had looked into years ago, though the drawback of those is that sometimes the ink doesn’t dry quickly enough to watercolor on top of right away, as I do here.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Kelly on the Windowsill
Posted: April 29, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat artwork, cats, daily sketch, kelly, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat art, cat sketches, cats, charcoal sketch, ink and watercolor, sketch of cat, watercolor, watercolor pencil 8 Comments
Kelly on the Windowsill, ink and watercolor © B.E. Kazmarski
Kelly enjoys the sun on her back on the bathroom windowsill, and also likely the reflected heat from the deck roof, just below. It’s not all that warm, but just warm enough to have the windows open in mid-afternoon. The pussy willow is right outside the window and the dappled leaves were charming, and the blue sky beyond.
Another combination of media that I enjoy, ink and watercolor. In this case I did the ink sketch first, then scribbled into it with watercolor pencil. The watercolor pencil is a two-part technique, first the drawing, then the watering. In this case I knew I’d want to leave some of my sketching lines and in other cases I wanted to obliterate them.
In other cases, such as the sky and the wall beneath her, I wanted both and I was very pleased with what happened when I just brushed a water-filled brush over my lines. I could achieve a multitude of techniques this way, with just random washes in the sky where I used the brush on its side, but patterned washes in the shadow on the wall where I used the tip of the brush (that’s a white sable no. 4 round, students, you know who you are) in straight parallel lines running through the angled watercolor pencil lines in green and blue.
This is the first time I’ve used this new set of watercolor pencils, Prismacolor 12-color set water-soluble colored pencils. The Derwent set had an excellent reputation, but I found them to be kind of weak in color, especially the darks, once I got the washes on it. I had also used them for a huge illustration for a sign I just finished and had to go over and over areas in order to get them as dark as I wanted, which took away from the feeling of freehand sketching.
In the Prismacolor set, the colors dissolved and blended easily though I’m not sure why the dark green in the leaves did not; it did where I used it in Kelly’s shadows. I had wanted to brush the two greens together to look more random and leafy.
I should have done some color test swatches with the pencils before I began to be sure what shades they would end up. The sky and the shadow on the windowsill behind Kelly are two different shades of blue, but they certainly don’t look like it and kind of blend together.
But so far, I like this set much better than the other two.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Creating With Cats: A Clever Pillow, or Two
Posted: April 28, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, artists and crafters, cats, creating with cats, pets | Tags: animal print fabrics, cats, dogs, pawprint fabrics, pets, upholstery Leave a comment
Detail of fabric, "Cats on Vacation" by Andover Fabrics.
Where do you suppose these two are going? Totally distracted during a conversation, I had to know what this fabric was all about.
I stopped in at Distinctively Different Decor & More yesterday to discuss business and fun with Bonita. As she was pulling swatches of fabrics and beaded trims for her current decorating and upholstery projects in her workroom, I really was distracted by this swatch laying quietly on the other end of her large worktable.
"Cats on Vacation" by Andover Fabrics.
Partly the combination of bright colors and partly the intriguing arrangement of the figures, the overall look reminded me of one of those colorful cotton tablecloths from the late 1940s printed with fruits and figures and things which I collect, but I also saw cats on it and had to know what Bonita intended to do with it.
One of Bonita's envelope pillows with lots of trim binding and fringe.
Apparently, it will become two of her large stuffed sofa or floor pillows to add to the collection in her shop, The Studio, where she features gift items of her own creation plus those of other artisans, including me.
Aside from her other talents in textile design, sewing and upholstering, Bonita is the queen of pillows. And while she uses florals and textures and colors to create both simple and highly decorated styles, I always notice the animal prints, especially the stripes and spots as in this envelope pillow made of densely woven fabric that is dimensionally textured along the stripes, with coordinating satin binding around the sides and dense short fringe on the “flap”.
Pawprint floor pillows.
This flap closes with a wooden button that actually works as all of her pillows are made for use by people with pets and the covers are removable for washing. Bonita lives with six rescued cats of all stripes and colors.
This set of 18″ floor pillows in sturdy pawprint fleece is a little simpler, just a big stuffed square with a zipper closure on one edge, but all pillows are stuffed with an inner pillow that holds the filling so you don’t have the batting popping out when you open it to wash the cover.
The animal-print lamp.
Detail of lampshade.
Animal prints aren’t reserved for only pillows as I’ve seen tablecloths and upholstered items come and go, and Bonita was also very pleased to present a project she’d recently finished that was in the planning stages for at least three years, a lamp that she’d custom painted to match the colors in the—yes, leopard print—fabric she used on the shade. For extra interest, this fabric also has a slightly “furry” texture that I couldn’t resist touching. She can’t resist the addition of satin binding here either as it softens the inner angles of the lamp base where the fluted curves meet.
In her support of rescued cats, Bonita also donates things she makes to shelter events, and always has a basket for pet food donations in her shop. It seems many of her customers are pet lovers as well!
Donation basket for pet food.
You can visit Bonita’s website at Distinctively Different Decor & More.
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All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Daily Sketch: Quickly, Before They Wake
Posted: April 26, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, black cats, cats, daily sketch, giuseppe, mewsette, pencil | Tags: black cat, cat art, cat outline, cat sketches, cats, pencil sketch of two cats 1 Comment
Quickly, Before They Wake, pencil © B.E. Kazmarski
Giuseppe and Mewsette spent the day on my desk and I watched as they cuddled, stretched and blocked my view. I’ve already sketched those postures, they are moving too much, I’m in the middle of something…
But when they tucked their heads in together like two commas cuddling, I furtively grabbed my sketchbook and a pencil and quietly but quickly stood up to do a quick sketch of their two faces tucked together; sometimes my movements or even looking at them wakens them, especially as the afternoon draws along and they are thinking of dinner. I did manage to snap a photo as well, but they sensed my vigilance and woke up to look around, shift, and the moment was over.
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Click here to see other daily sketches, and for a gallery of the ones available for sale, visit my Etsy shop in the “Daily Sketches” section.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
Did I Hear There Was Milk? 2011
Posted: April 26, 2012 Filed under: animal artwork, cat painting, cat photographs, cats, daily photo, feline artwork, kelly, photographs, senior cats, tortoiseshell cats | Tags: cat photographs, cats, feline photographs, felines, pet photography, photography, photoshop effects, tortoiseshell cat 8 Comments
Graceful Kelly
Funny, when I looked at this photo the first thing I thought was, “If I saw Kelly like this today, this would be a daily sketch.” Aha, I see a little farther into this that I was getting the daily sketch urge this far back in 2011, yet it took me until December to actually get around to it. Glad I did. As usual, I have a cat to thank for one of my creative efforts.
Kelly shapes herself into a graceful curve in mid-bath as I open the refrigerator door.
I don’t give my cats milk very often, but Kelly gets on these kicks where she demands it whenever I open the refrigerator door. I don’t usually give it to her, but I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask because every now and then, on my silly whim, out comes the little milk dish and Kelly gets a treat.
But Kelly is just so pretty here bathing gracefully in front of the plants. In fact, Kelly is graceful no matter what she does.
And I think it may be time for me to grab that sketchbook as often as the camera since I’ve been visualizing sketches and paintings in greater detail every day. I used to sketch something each day, often it was my cats though it might be an interior scene or something in my yard, usually in pencil, but sometimes in other media, just to keep my fingers in the mix. So much has happened in the last few months it’s been difficult to focus on quick sketches, which demand more attention than larger works, though for shorter periods of time.
So I decided to use a little help from PhotoShop to see what Kelly would look like in a rough, impressionistic sketch. I used the same photo as above, applied the “dry brush” filter and made the brush strokes fairly large. But the filters in PhotoShop don’t produce a realistic effect. If I was teaching I would grade the products of PS filters around the mid-range, but then it’s a computer making the decisions, and creative effort is one area of human endeavor where a computer will never produce work as individual and insightful as a human being.
For instance, I work in pastel, but I’ve never seen anyone produce a pastel sketch or painting anything like what PS produces with its “rough pastels” filter, but the “dry brush” filter is somewhat like what I’d visualize in pastel. But it looked a little dull so I also had to fool around with the contrast and brightness, and I also added a 35% deep yellow “photo filter” to warm it up a bit.
Still, I want highlights and deep rich areas, and I want to see orange in Kelly and green in the plants and it just wasn’t happening, even when I went back and adjusted the original photo. I think I’d also take the red from the medallion at the top and from the bricks and add it elsewhere in the painting so everything wasn’t in basic earth tones. Those are the artistic judgments I’d make before I even started, and it never ceases to amaze me how far I wander from my reference images while painting, and yet the finished painting is perfectly acceptable. Guess I’d better get out the pastels. In the time I’d spent on this I could have had a passable sketch done! But still, this gets the little painterly cells firing in my brain. And right now Kelly is over there meowing for her dinner, so I’d better get to it.
Yes, I’d better get to it!
A painterly version of the same scene.
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Unless I have linked the photo to something else, which is rare with daily photos, you can click the photo to see a larger version. I save them at 1000 pixels maximum dimension, and at that size the photos are nearly twice the dimension and you can see more detail in many of the photos I post. Please remember if you download or share, my name and the link back to the original photo should always appear with it.
To see more daily photos go to “Daily Images” in the menu and choose “All Photos” or any other category.
All images used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission. Please ask if you are interested in purchasing one as a print, or to use in a print or internet publication.
The Creative Cat 