9x12" Acrylic paint on canvas, 2025

For my painting of an animal I wanted to do a painting of a cat. My favorite animal is a cat and I chose to paint one of mine. I chose to replicate a photo of my cat willow sleeping in my room. I chose this photo because not only does it include my favorite animal, but it also has my favorite color mostly everywhere in the photo. In a way this painting shows a little bit about me. The first step I took to paint this painting was to paint the canvas a light teal color so I could trace the photo onto it. I projected the photo on my computer and used a projector to trace it since the canvas was a bigger canvas. The first part I painted was the gray part of the cats body, then I painted the white. After I had painted the base colors I then painted the details on the stomach. I painted spots and stripes which I had to redo a couple of times to make it blend smoothly. I painted the face last because I knew I would have the most trouble with it, I had a difficult time painting the eyes. In the photo her eyes were halfway closed so I had to use very fine brushes and strokes to make the eyes look accurate. When I was done painting the cat I then painted the two blankets in the background. On the bottom one I added small patterns to the blanket and on the top one I blended the paint with water to add texture and dimension. When creating this painting my intention was to show people how great of a pet and animal cats are. This is a realism painting and I like to paint realism paintings because it shows memories and life experiences. My favorite part of the painting is how relaxed she looks laying and how the blankets flow and match together based on the colors.