This is a pet portrait of a grey British shorthair cat named Rocky sitting in a garden with smooth river rock stones and black eyed Susan flowers. Acrylic painting on 9×12 inch canvas, completed May 16, 2025. Rocky’s portrait was done in a natural realistic style, with a highly detailed background. I don’t normally get asked to paint a detailed background, and I have only done it a few times in the past eight years, but I enjoyed taking my time and making all the details come to life.

The owner provided several reference photos, and I used a combination of at least three of them for this painting. For Rocky, I used one photo where he was sitting in the garden, but not near the flowers. Then there was another photo of him lying down near the flowers, and a third showing the stones, so I combined all of those into a working reference.

I painted the entire canvas in a base layer of neutral gray to mute the colors and fill in the white of the canvas. I started with the flowers in the background first. I painted a layer of medium muted green and patches of ivory black for the base, then blocked in the leaves and the petals for the flowers on top of that in titanium white. Then I added layers of greens for the leaves, and layers of yellows for the flowers, with some brown for the center of each flower.

Next, I painted the stones. I painted a layer of medium to dark brownish black, then blocked in each individual stone in whatever the mid tone color was for that stone (parchment, unbleached titanium, blue-gray, raw sienna, etc), then added more layers for highlights and added a shadow to give it dept. This part took me a while, but the outcome was worthwhile, as the stones look very realistic in my opinion.

The cat was painted last. I used a mixture of blue-gray and neutral gray for the base layer, except on the chest where I mixed in a small amount of raw umber to give his fur a brownish cast. I then added ivory black mixed with blue-gray for the shaded areas. On top of these, I added many, many layers of neutral gray and parchment to work up the fur details. His eyes are a vibrant orange-yellow, which is characteristic of this breed, and accurate to the photographic reference. The eye color matches the flowers, and the fur color matches the stones, so overall this is a very pleasing composition.

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If you enjoy this painting and want a custom pet portrait of your own, please visit my Pet Portraits Commission page to learn more about the process and see my price list. I offer two styles: colorful and natural colors, with any kind of background style you want. Please view my Portfolio to see all the portraits I have painted so far to get an idea of what I can do.

I have been painting pet portraits professionally since 2017, and have over 150 paintings in my portfolio. I have painted all kinds of animals, including cats, dogs, farm animals, birds, reptiles, and rodents. I book up 2-3 months in advance, so be sure to schedule soon to have a spot on my calendar.