Bailey ad infinitum

As some of you may know, I was asked several months ago by UK artist Gill Barron, Painter of Everything, to be a contributing artist in her how-to book on acrylic painting, to be published by Quarto Publishing. VERY EXCITING! I've been hard at work putting finishing touches on two large paintings with progress photos and text for the project, and I'm finally done. One painting is an interior/still life, and one is a portrait of our Bailey.

I can't show you the finished paintings, but if you look real hard you might catch a blurry partial glimpse of one in this photo I took of Bailey in my studio.*

While I was doing the cropping and sizing to get this blog-ready, I had the thought, what if I did a painting of this photo and took another picture of Bailey sitting in front of that painting? And then what if I did another painting of that photo and took a picture of Bailey in front of that painting? And THEN ... I had to stop thinking about it because I was starting to blow my own mind a little bit.

* The day after I took this photo I found this art card by Nicole Wong and I just HAD to have it. It's just, oh, SO Bailey.

Misunderstood

Dreaming in Color © 2008 Karen Mathison Schmidt
6x6 • acrylic on Gessobord
SOLD • private collection, Poway, California

I love painting Bailey. Her colors and markings are really beautiful. Here she is in all her napping glory, on a pile of books and paint tube boxes next to the little square ceramic planter where I keep my colored pencils, while the early morning light comes streaming through the window.

I love this cat, although some people, my husband among them, don’t get her. They think she’s grouchy and stand-offish.

I understand her.

Her needs and wants are simple, really; Bailey thinks of herself as the Queen of the House (nay, Universe) and all she asks is to be treated as such. That’s all. Totally understandable.

Here are my work-in-progress photos.
These first 2 show blocking in shapes and colors.



And here’s where I paint a burnt sienna glaze over the whole thing, to warm things up a bit:


And then add more detailed layers of color ...



Here are some details of the finished painting:



... and now, for an unnecessarily EXTREME close-up:


Cool, huh?