Cat's Away, Mice Play

Hope this will bring you a little smile as I work through the painting as I feel in a humorous mood for whatever reason.
For the August show my art group wanted you to work in squares.  So I decided to do a 12"x12" size overall picture (cause you have to frame this piece and I'm cheap), breaking it into 4 squares of 5" each and putting my lazy cat and friends into it. 
Going back to one of my loves, and that is graphite.  By the way there is an excellent tutorial for the last two months by Peter Williams at PMP's magazine - http://issuu.com/paintmyphoto, and look for Peter's article as he is quite spectacular. 
I have been trying for a while to learn and then actually use GIMP.  My main thrust was to learn how to put together two different pictures and make a new reference (thankyouYouTube, only had to watch it 27 times!!!).  Finally think I was successful (see below).  Found a wonderful reference for both cat and mice on PMP.  Didn't want this to be a violent piece and was just captivated by this kitty's position.  So thought let's complicate it a bit and throw in a little trompe l'oeil, which I've never tried so might as well see if I can pull it off, with the mice trying to get out of the frame.
One of the best trompe l'oeil artists is JD Hillberry, check both he and Mike Sibley out on thedrawingforum.com and there is lots to learn on this site.  Both these guys know their way around a pencil and both of them have written books which give extensive knowledge and insight into their working methods.
Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great week!!!

Comments

hmuxo said…
This is amazing already, Nelvia!!!!
July 8, 2014 at 1:16 PM
Nelvia said…
Thanks Hilda, it makes me smile to work on it, think when I get to the mice I'll be giggling. Hope I can capture their expressions!!
July 9, 2014 at 3:00 PM
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