Monday, February 13, 2012

Pastel Cat Portraits I

I have come to the realization (with much prodding from my husband) that woodburning in winter with the house closed up is not the healthiest thing. I knew that, of course, but when I get into something it's sometimes hard to break it. So the deer and the burl will be put on the backburner (no pun intended) until I can open the windows without freezing. In the meantime, I wanted to do something I haven't touched in a while - pastels.














I came up with this wonderful idea for a cheetah pastel painting, and even started it, but soon realized that I'm a little out of practice with the pastels. So I am currently working on a four-part series of small portraits of my cats. Here are the first two, completed. The cat on the left is Dawn. She is a shy, quiet one who acts very submissive to the others. She has a wonderful coat of white, tan and gray. After consulting a cat book, we determined she is a classic silver torbie, based on her markings. She is a tabby with the M on the forehead (hard to see in this pose, though).

We got Dawn and her sister, Dusk (right), at the shelter. Part of the shelter adoption agreement was they must wear collars at all times, but they are strictly indoor cats. They will be three years old this summer. Dusk is a mediumhair tortoiseshell. It is hard to tell in all but the best light, but she also has some faint tabby markings on her face. She loves being held and petted, she will play with water, and has occasionally played fetch. We think she thinks she's a dog sometimes.

So these are my two littlest ones. Over the next few days, I'll work on my older two cats and post them here.

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