Sharing here a cute painting from a few months ago! Hadn’t gotten around to doing so before as became busy but very happy to have to time to catch up now. It’s a painting inspired by someone else’s work actually from a T-shirt ad on Facebook. I loved it so much that thought it would be an idea to try it out myself in my own style and version. The difference is that the original artwork was entirely blue-themed with the cats in different patterns, whereas I did my own variation by getting them in different colors. It was also an opportunity for me to experiment with combining watercolor and gouache. And I must say it turned out so beautifully!
On a sheet of A3 Canson’s Watercolor Paper (300gsm), I started with the sky. Harmonia’s Granulating Watercolors seemed the perfect choice to achieve that mysterious feel to it, and having a closer look at the original painting (not pictured), I noticed how the sky had some pink elements besides the blue for a warmer undertone. Very pleased with how it looked after giving it a go myself! For the moon, those same watercolors applied. That blooming effect was quite an accident but then again added to the texture. Those granulating watercolors were indeed a great choice! And now the cats. I was aiming for an opaque matte look for them and hence selected Holbein’s Gouache for this reason. Sure enough, they really do pop out against the misty background! I then experimented with the “dry brush” technique for the wall which I must say turned out as expected. Final touches were the stars using Uni Posca white markers. Et voilà!
I’m very pleased how this painting turned out. A great example of how watercolor and gouache can work well together. I think it’s best with watercolor for the background and gouache for the subjects, but I’m happy to try other combinations. And look how cute the cats are! I’ve not done much with cats facing the other way which was not difficult although getting it as symmetrical as possible with the tail centered properly proved a fun challenge. More practice needed painting cats more in different directions. Liking this painting so much that I’m coming up with a digital Procreate version of it… so do watch this space!
My Kawaii Quarter 