TILLY & JASPER the White Cats!
12” x 12” oil on board
My job, as the artist, is to take what I am given- and make an artwork with it….I’d love to have professional images to work with every time- but it doesn’t work like that!…these pictures were taken about 30 years ago and there is no chance of getting any better ones! I was given 14 photos of these 2 cats and I’ve had to pick the best bits from each to use in the final composition which also has to feature both cats! So I chose two of their body shapes that fitted well together and were taken from roughly the same camera angle, with similar lighting…and two others to get their eyes right because both of them had their eyes virtually closed! Once I’d figured this out I then had to think about how to paint animals that are virtually all white! I tell you what though- it’s challenges like this that make me improve as an artist…I loved finding all the pastel shades in the white to help make this pair look interesting…I liked that their eyes were different too…the female-Tilly had rounder eyes…the Male-Jasper- his were more slanted. This helped to make them look different to each other! I’ve included 2 close ups of Tilly’s eyes so you can see how choosing the right marks and colours that look pretty strange close up - can really make the eyes look realistic and glassy when you step away a little. The beauty of working in oil paint, for me, is in placing and viewing those marks unblended.
The ‘crazy paving’ was a fun feature too to help make the picture a bit more dynamic and gave the opportunity to reflect nice mauve colours off the white fur.