Painting One

Gillian Lenth "Truffles"

9” x 12”, Acrylic Paint, 2018

I knew for sure that I wanted to paint an animal because I needed to challenge myself a bit since I don’t normally draw animals. However, I didn’t want to paint some random, meaningless creature, so I decided to paint my sisters cat instead! Also, my parents kept asking me to paint one of our pets, so I hit two birds with one stone. Honestly as I was painting it, I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out because I hardly ever paint and I didn’t really ever practice the medium. So, I pretty much learned as I was making it. However, if I could change anything about it, I would’ve done a better background and made sure it was more proportional. I didn’t really like the actual background of the picture I used as a reference, so I chose a design that I thought would really make the cat stand out and pop. Though I think it just made the painting a little dull and empty. I really love though, how the blending of the colors turned out. I like the look of more looser paint strokes in realistic paintings, so that was the kind of style I was going for. The thing I’m most proud of is how it actually looks like fur, because that was kind of difficult to paint. Overall, I am pretty proud of the finished result.