Back in February my Wonderful Mother commissioned me to paint a portrait of my brother with his cat, Boss. The reference picture she supplied had his other cat, Mook (Boss’s brother!) just out of frame… so I utilized my Creative Powers and made it a portrait of the three of them. This was my first foray into oils in many years, and reignited my love for them. It was this experience that led, six months later, to my setting up a permanent painting station in my studio, so I could work with them more.
As with any portrait, this one began as a set of messy thumbnails:
This then progressed to a pencil-on-paper drawing. I couldn’t paint over the pencils because I didn’t have the right medium to seal the paper and graphite, so this was mostly practice for drawing directly on the gessobord with colored pencils later on.
WoMo got both the finished oil and the pencil cartoon, and brother liked it also—so it was a good experience all around!
I’m not currently accepting custom art commissions, but you can always submit a quote request if you have an idea!