Star Spangled

• Subject: Californian Spangled cat
• Medium:Pastel
• Completion Date: November 3, 2012
• Completion Time: 3 months
• Dimensions: 24'' X 19''
• Background: Blended

My inspiration for this oversize pastel portrait was to concentrate on the features at close range as the facial features of cats fascinate me, so I decided to explore them and use the eyes as the main focal point.

I chose to work on a warm support selecting caput mortuum textured pastel board which complimented the colours used in the portrait, also this background shade required a minimum of colour to achieve a soft backdrop.

The initial drawing was sketched out and roughly blocked in with base colours using hard pastels.  The depth of colour was built up using hard pastels and the eye shaping was created with pastel pencils.  Soft pastels were blended to create the texture of the fur while mapping out the markings in the coat with darker shades and the tones were added within the eyes.

Using a sharp point fine hairs were added to the portrait with pastel pencils in neutral colours.  The background was blended with muted shades from within the subject matter and finally whiskers were struck out using a small piece of extremely soft handmade pastel adjusting with a pastel pencil to add realism.