Let me hold your place

A few weeks ago I joined the budding art-focused social media site called Cara. I’ve enjoyed building up my presence there and finding some community among those fearsomely talented folks. Last weekend Magdalena Baltes proposed a friendly art exchange, paint her pet in exchange for one of her paintings of yours. Looking at her work, I could only say “Yes, please!”

This is her kitty. Her name is Lucy. And she wants you to know it is rude to ignore the kitty in your lap for something as boring as a book. You should be paying attention to her!

I found working with her tiger-style striping to be a challenge. I want to simplify, but it feels like the minute patterning on her fur to be crucial to her identity. I think the striping looks all right, but does the rest look like fur? Maybe? Another challenge was putting words on the pages of the book. I didn’t want to just copy what was in the reference, but I also didn’t want whatever I wrote to be distracting from the final image. I wound up going with a highly faded text. Aside from messy handwriting, I think that looks all right.

I started something new with the last couple pieces. In the last phase, I hide the reference and just judge for myself what the piece needs. In this case I cleaned up some edge lines and darkened around her eyes. I suspect this is an important stage in my growth.