Total Art Soul - for artists

Week before last, I took an intensive oil painting class at the local museum called Pet Portraits in Oils.  I've taken classes with this artist before and have learned so much.  This class was no exception. 

Here's a picture of the cat I am painting...

She's a sweet, affectionate cat named Penny.  Adorable, kind little cat.  I have the honor of house-sitting her when my best friend goes out of town.  :)  I wanted to add a little something to the painting on the left side, instead of just leaving it with the frosted window background.  So I sketched in this:

She would always hop up on the ledge and stare out the window chattering at the birds.  So I thought painting in a bird feeder with a little bird would bring out a part of her personality in this painting. 

Next I worked at painting in the intial blocks of color.  Very tempting to start fiddling with details at this point, but I tried to resist.  Here's the painting with the undercoat done:

I've been hard at work on this painting ever since.  I haven't had much chance to work on it this past week after the class ended, but I found one night to add the layers of fur on her.  Looks kind of weird, but I could see it all coming together. 

Today I had the chance to paint for several hours.  It was glorious!  I plan to continue on it tomorrow, hopefully completing her fur.  Here's the latest update of the painting:

I have a lot of work left to do.  While the fur is all filled in on her body, there are areas I have to go back and tweak.  Despite the tweaks, I'm pretty happy with how that's looking so far.  Her face is maybe half done and obviously the eyes need work!  LOL!  I'm not happy with bird and the feeder.  That's going to need some work, too.

The agency that I work for was chosen as one of the local charities for the 2010 Mayor's Charity Ball.  The person at work who is in charge of the planning for this event is a good friend of mine and being aware that I'm an artist (she owns Flowers for Arcadio I, which was named after her precious cat who died and can be found in my gallery) asked if I would be willing to donate a painting.  I am thrilled to have this opportunity to support not only the agency I work for but the others chosen and have agreed to donate this painting when it is done.

Now I just have to finish it!  :)