The Bronze Cat finished

 

The Bronze Cat finished 

I finished the painting of the bronze cat at last. 

I am pleased with how well I succeeded with the tiger's eye on the left using glazes. The Connemara marble is satisfactorily chunky using a pointillist technique in shades of grey over a green glaze. 

The fool's gold was tricky to paint. I used metallic paint in light gold more for fun than for effect. But the key to capturing it was the dark shadows setting off the highlights. 

I don't know what the other crystals are. 

I am pleased with the light green crystal on the left. It had a white reticulated pattern interspersed with dark green areas and the light reflecting off it bleached the pattern. That took a few glazes to get the light areas the right shade. 

The light blue had a lot of tiny dots of white over blue and then blue glazes to take the white back to the right shade. That was easy as was the large brown crystal on the right. But that one was mainly dots of light shades of ochre glazed with sepia. 

The other crystals were straight forward to paint using glazes.

Bronze cat painting 2

 

Painting of Bronze Cat update

I have had a few disruptions to stop me finishing this painting. Some were minor distractions. For example, today I had an idea about doing sketches from life, and I wondered if anyone made shopping trolleys with a seat, so instead of painting, I researched them. There were a few styles and now I need to decide the best seat height. 

I have finished the Connemara marble and I am happy with what I have done with the tiger's eye. Today I have been working on the fool's gold. I raised the crystals up on small camera tripod so that they would catch the light in the same way as they did in my original composition. You can see two of the crystals on the left. 

If you are wondering what they are sitting on, I set a nut of the right thread for a camera tripod into the back of the piece of wood to make an easel for miniatures. Then recently I converted it so it would hold my iPod Touch for taking special photos. The green stuff is Sugru which is great stuff to play with and make things. I have just adapted another table easel with a drawer to be able to attach it to a larger tripod by sticking a nut to the underneath with Sugru. Sugru is very good for sticking things. I will write a post about it if it works. 

To get back to the artwork, there is less to do than you may think. The main thing is the shadows. They may take a while because of getting the soft edges.