Pastel Cat Complete.

I made my deadline and hopefully the pastel of Poppy which I've called 'Guilty' will arrive at the Llewellyn Alexander Gallery in London tomorrow.
It was collected by the couriers yesterday and together with three more paintings will be included in the 2010 Society of Feline Artists exhibition.

I did a bit of tweaking with the background and removed a couple of the flowers which I decided didn't add anything to the overall impression.

Transition Period

'Poppy'

Next week I fly to Canada for almost three weeks so my posting will continue to be infrequent until the beginning of September.

When I took early retirement at the end of March I thought I would spend far more time on my art which would include posting to my blog. I have spent more time on my art but it has mainly been behind the scenes marketing. The number of completed pieces I have produced has not been great and I have missed more deadlines than I ever did when I was juggling working and art.

I've also felt that I had little to post about, and the days I was going to post I've left it until I was too tired.
However on the positive side things I have done are:-
Set the wheels in motion to exhibit at two or three large Agricultural shows in 2011
Joined the members of Living Heritage craftsmen and committed to attend the Cheshire Game Fair with them at the end of August
Created and produced a 2011 calendar which is already selling well
Catalogued my prints and cards and made sure I have sufficient stock to avoid any future marathon printing sessions.
Had one of my images included on the 2010 Society of Feline Artists Brochure (I'll show you in my next post)
I'm treating the last few months as a time of transition and not worrying over what I have or haven't done. It's been hard for me to switch from the daily challenges I had in my job which involved a great deal of responsibility to just managing myself.
But I think I'm getting there, I've a lot of ideas for future drawings and paintings and posts for my blog and am quite excited with how 'Poppy' is turning out.
I've decided to continue sporadic posting until the end of August and then return with a bang in September.
I hope you all have a wonderful Summer (or Winter, depending on where you live)

Pastel Cat - Part 2

A couple of people asked if I'd post progress shots, so here's Poppy after todays work.

The colours aren't quite right as I had to take a photograph using a flash. The light is terrible here in Yorkshire as we're in the middle of a deluge. I have never, ever seen it rain as hard as it has been doing on and off over the last few hours.

Apart from Clinton and Roxie the dogs have point blank refused to go outside. Trying to encourage them to go outside I ended up standing in the dog run in the rain while they watched from the Conservatory door refusing to even put a paw out the door.

Pastel cat on Pastelmat

I wanted to compare pastel and coloured pencil on Pastelmat. I also wanted to see how colours worked on the black as I always feel that black Stonehenge has a deadening effect on colours.

Here's a few stages in a little demo I did.

I like the pastel, the colours stay vibrant, at least for now, I'll revisit in a few days

When is Lilac known as Lavender?

When it is a coat colour in a cat.

In order to accurately portray the coat colours in the various breeds of cats I want to paint I have been looking at how colour is inherited. I studied genetics as part of my degree in Zoology so can understand the theory. So far so good with colour, but then I moved on to the inheritance of coat patterns, at that point my brain gave up for the day.

My main problem came when I realised that the same genetic colour can have different names depending on both the breed of cat and the breed association.

So lilac can become lavender, tortoiseshell and white can become calico, black can be ebony etc.

When I then started thinking about spotted, tipped, pointed etc, not to mention ticked, mitted and agouiti I decided much more research will be needed.

The one thing I do know is that all cats inherit some form of the tabby gene so perhaps I should stick to tabbies, now would that be mackerel or classic.

I will continue to share my findings as I go along.

Just for a change I dug my pastels out today.