This is a pet portrait painting of a brown tabby cat named KJ. His portrait was painted with acrylics on an 8×10 inch canvas, completed July 9, 2025. KJ is missing an arm, which was the result of an injury when he was a 6 week old kitten. He has adjusted very well to being a tripod, and has a very strong personality per his owner!

KJ’s portrait was painted in a natural realistic color scheme, with a seafoam/sage colored background with complements his eye color. The background color was a mixture of green-gray, aqua green, and a few other colors until the perfect color was achieved. I added some of the green-gray to the background as a slight gradient so it was not a solid color. The wood table he is sitting on was painted with several layers of raw umber, burnt umber, and burnt sienna with ivory black for the wood grain texture. I used the same color as the base for his eyes, and adding layers of the same color with yellow mixed in for the lighter areas, and with ivory black in very small amounts for the shading.

For the underpainting, I used mostly unbleached titanium and raw umber for the areas with stripes, and unbleached titanium with raw sienna for the beige areas on his belly, the top of his nose, under his eyes, and his upper lips. Layers of darker colors, mostly raw umber and ivory black, were added for the stripes, and then I went over the top of it again with unbleached titanium and parchment for the paler colored hairs that are in between the darker stripes. Titanium white was used very sparingly on the areas just around his mouth and for his whiskers, as well as the highlights in his eyes. Rose pink mixed with pale yellow was used for the inside of the ears and the nose, with just a touch of magenta on the nose so it was darker.

* * *

I hope you enjoy this unique portrait of KJ the tripod tabby cat! If you want a hand painted portrait of your own pet, please click on the Pet Portraits tab above to see the list of sizes, prices, and availability. I have been creating custom pet portraits since 2017, and have painted over 150 portraits of all kinds of pets, including dogs, cats, sheep, lizards, birds, rodents, and many more. I create my portraits with high quality archival acrylic paints on stretched canvas, ranging in size from 5×7 inches to 48×60 inches for rectangular shapes, and from 6×6 inches to 30×30 inches for square shapes. I work from your photos, and communicate the entire process via regular email updates. I typically book out 2-3 months in advance, so if you want a portrait for a gift, please contact me in advance to reserve your spot on my schedule.