Splash of colour

For the final project of the week, I was very happy to come back to reality! While an exploration of marks, was just as desirable as deviating from normal colour profiles - I only wanted the colour deviation. Illustration wise, I wanted to return a little more, to my comfort zone again - realism.

It gave me the opportunity to use one of my favourite colours though, - lime green! Now I just had to find, a suitable reference image...

Source image - free download

I ventured to Pexels.com, for photographic inspiration. Luckily I found some, in an adorable moggy! It helped, to go with a monochrome picture, so I wasn't tempted to veer into original colour territory.

I wasn't necessarily looking for a cat, they just popped-up in the feed, and too damn cute to pass by!

 Initial sketch

Rough sketch in charcoal, first. Then my lime-green, soft pastels went down. I've learned, it's easier to start with a light application of charcoal, then put as much of your soft pastels down, as possible. Only then, do you go in with a heavy application of charcoal, for shading, afterwards.

If you go in hard, with the charcoal first, all your pastels will have a black tinge, where they come in contact with the charcoal. So the dark shading in charcoal, was the final application to go down.

Title: Techno-Cat

I really loved how the lime green, orange and yellow went together. While picking the colours was completely intentional, I didn't know how they would look together, until it was done. The yellow and green, gave the moggy an almost fluorescent appearance. Which was perfect for the name I chose. Techno-Cat.

They look like they're resting in the lights of a rave party. David said perhaps it should have more of a smile on it's face. But I think if I were a moggy, trying to get some rest at a rave party, I'd be pretty annoyed by the bright colours and noise too!

Once again, I loved this exercise for experimentation, and ultimately, story telling. Doing something different to a realistic picture, begs to ask the question - what's going on here? Which is true of abstract art, in general. My work is not exactly, abstract yet. But I'm getting there, one exercise at a time!