Cats

New selections from the cat department today.

Chloe - 11 x 14 - acrylic on board

More Chinoiserie - 11 x 14 inches - acrylic on board

Did I post the same image twice?

Aha! No! or yes, or sort of... maybe. The same painting, no, so technically, no, but the same composition for each.

Why?

Well, The cat depicted is my friend's, Stephenie's, cat, Chloe - that seems to be a punctuation mess, but I think you know what I'm saying - which died last year. Stephenie commissioned me to paint a memorial portrait, so I decided to paint two copies: one to go to her, one to show and (hopefully) sell.

Plus, though it's usually not such a concern, I was concerned about getting the likeness, so wanted a couple stabs at it...

"Insistence of Memory," is kind of an odd one in the oeuvre - bit of a different look.

Insistence of Memory - 24 x 30 inches - acrylic and oil pastel on canvas

The idea for this one came from a photograph of another friend's cat (also a dead cat), Dali: hence the joke of the title and the watch. I was also going for a disorienting feel with the non-perspectivally correct stripes. Originally I'd planned to have another magazine, in the back where the seat meets the back of the sofa, which would have had another watch ad, though the position of the page would have been folded a bit for that melty watch look - wasn't working out.

I got annoyed at the painting fairly early in the process and wasn't pleased with how it was going, so I decided to get a little experimental and complete it with oil pastel... and I don't know how many coats of varnish... Anyway, I find the results more satisfactory than what I expected to get from completing the work in acrylic. I like the drawing-like look of some parts.