Day 1: Mr. Wonderful

I felt inspired to do a painting of Mr. Wonderful. It was supposed to be a hot, miserable day, so I figured it’d be good to hole up in the studio. Mr. Wonderful refuses to pose, so I had to work from a photo. No, I don’t project and trace. That takes all the fun out of things.

Here’s Mr. Wonderful, the actual cat. Most days he spends snoozing in this chair in my studio:

Here’s how things looked after about the first hour:

I was determined to get “that look” right. Once his face was in I started mooshing in his body.

He’s got a bit of orange/red in his body. But what color it is? I took a color chart outside to try to figure it out. So glad I’d made color charts last winter!

Once I had Kitty more-or-less nailed in, I had to start on the background. A friend had given me a wonderful book on Leonardo da Vinci and last night I’d read about one of Leonardo’s first paintings: a bunch of exquisitely folded fabric. Aha! OK, Leonardo — you’ve inspired me! Only I think this time I’ll make it leopard fabric. What the heck. I draped some leopard velour over a cardboard box. We’ll just have to see if things work out. As I’ve said before, the key to making a good painting is learning to control your panic.

And here’s how things look at the end of the day (below). I must admit — taking periodic breaks to go out and pull weeds, prune branches, water things helps clear my mind.