EXPERIMENTING - Part 2

  

                     

       

My lovely cat, Bijou, again

I liked the result in pastel, so figured I'd try the same idea in oil.

#1 - top left: I did an under-painting in pale green, and tried some 

colors in the other areas,

#2 - top right: Painted the cat, but too dark, I think. Should have matched

the value of the under-painting which is now showing up

just as whitish spots, so ....

#3 - bottom left: ... I covered up the under-painting completely. Well, that's 

better, but it lacks the punch of the pastel version. So ....

#4 - bottom right: .... proceeding with the advice & encouragement of my 

friend Linda, I made a really thin wash of sap green and painted 

it over everything, but the cat. Better - at least it looks like it

all belongs together now. 

Result: I learned something new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

EXPERIMENTING

BIJOU

Bijou is my Russian Blue companion, and is always ready to have her 

photo taken, or a sketch drawn. I decided to experiment with this drawing. 

Step 1 - top left. I sketched her from a photo, then attempted to create

some texture in parts of the drawing by placing a piece of scrap metal screen

under the 130# paper and rubbing over it with Stockmar white beeswax. Next, I thinned

down some acrylic and did a green wash over the whole image.

Step 2 - top right. Using charcoal, I created, more or less, a value map of the cat,

then painted over everything with Golden acrylic ground for pastels as some grit

was needed to hold the pastel.

Step 3 - bottom left. Adding pastel. Hmmm. Not as happy with this as the texture

I had created in Step 1 pretty much disappeared. Maybe added pastel with too 

heavy a hand? What next?

Step 4 - bottom right. I added green to her eyes - which, indeed, are a lovely green.

I think I'm done with this particular experiment, and am, somewhat, happy with 

the result. I like the fact that I played with color, though my intent was to be much looser and free-er with the entire piece - always a struggle. I'll try another with lighter-weight paper, lighter hand with pastels, and see what transpires.