I created two paintings of the same cat for the same customer, in April 2024, along with another portrait of a different cat for them in May 2024. In the photo above, the mostly white cat on the far left is KJ, and the middle and right ones (tabby with white) are Junior. The owner had sent a bunch of photos and asked me to pick one of each that I liked the best to paint, and for Junior I picked the one on the far right as the reference. She liked the painting but wanted one of Junior laying down as well, so I painted the middle one, which I actually like better than the other one, although they are both great. All three paintings are created with acrylic paints on 12 x 16 inch stretched canvases, and were completed in early 2024.

KJ’s photo featured him resting inside of a cat condo, so I kept that in the background, as you can see with the black area around his body. The background I wanted to be colorful but not distracting, so I went with a cool color gradient of purples, blues, and greens, and added the cat condo carpet texture using a brush on which the bristles have been damaged and splayed out. It is a brush I almost tossed but it has been an invaluable brush for making all kinds of textures, including stone, cloth, carpet, and wool. I chose mostly blue and purple tones for his fur coloring, since he is a grey and white cat. His ears and nose are pink, and his eyes are green.

For the first one of Junior, I went with a bold background of a rainbow gradient, starting at hot pink on the top and going through the entire spectrum to end on red at the bottom. Junior is a brown tabby with white, so I chose a magenta base and added the fur details and markings in various colors, using darker ones for the tabby stripes and lighter ones for the brown areas.

The painting of Junior in the middle was created using more imagination and artistic license. He was laying on a sheepskin blanket, and I took liberties to turn that blanket into a rainbow colored ‘cloud’, using the same damaged brush I used for KJ’s background. The fur colors were done in a similar style as the other portrait, except I used a lot less contrasting color choices for the stripes, opting for lighter colors so the stripes are not as dark. I also added a light halo effect around the boundary of the cat’s body, giving it an ethereal glow.

These paintings are hanging on their owner’s wall with all the other portraits I did for her over the years. And I hope to continue adding to that wall for years to come!