The first pet portrait of 2025 was this adorable shorthair gray cat named Chibi. Her owner requested that I paint his portrait with natural colors with a brightly colored background, and I chose green and yellows to match the color of his eyes. His portrait was painted with acrylics on an 11×14 inch canvas, and completed mid January, 2025.

The owner sent me several reference photos of Chibi to use. They told me they really liked his ‘loaf’ posture and hoped I could use that photo. However in that photo, he was not looking up but to the side, so I made a composite of two separate photos, using the head from another photo where he was looking directly forward. If done properly, this type of composite photo can make a wonderful and unique reference to work from. I often have to do this since I rarely find one single reference photo that is perfect. What matters most in compositing reference photos is the light source direction and the proportions. The light must come from the same direction or the same intensity in all photos used, or else there will be a lighting mismatch and it will look strange. It is also important that the proportions of the pet line up as closely as possible; avoid foreshortening or the pet facing the wrong direction when you choose your other sources.

The style of Chibi’s portrait is done in Natural Colors with a bright colored background. This is one of several styles I offer pet portrait customers for their paintings, so I can still showcase the pet’s natural markings and colors but still have a splash of bright color in the painting to make it more interesting and unique! In this case, Chibi is a gray cat, so I used neutral gray and blue-gray to create the base layer, and then layered parchment for the highlights and gray mixed with ivory black for the shaded areas. The blue gray was used a lot in the shaded areas to make them cool, and the warmer neutral gray was used in the lighter areas. There is no such thing as a solid color for a pet’s fur; there are lots of rich undertones and reflected light that can make a “gray” cat’s fur. The eyes were painted with light olive green and lime green, and shaded with a darker shade of the same color. The eye color was reflected in the background color choice, which provides a nice contrast to his fur color while accentuating the eye color.