Lemewl Cox Cat, by John Singleton Catley

This was a little experiment with first an idea, then the technique. I wanted to do some Colonial cat portraits, based on actual paintings done back in the day. I did some research, and settled on a painting of Lemuel Cox by John Singleton Copley to be my inspiration.

"Lemewl Cox Cat" 

At first I was going to be more 'illustrative', then I ended up pretty much copying the painting, substituting a cat for Lemuel Cox, and making adjustments to the coat (neck, mostly) to fit the cat proportions. 

I started out with Prismacolors on Strathmore Bristol. 

I developed the drawing, and went darker and darker with background.

I just kept going, with different colors + black, then came in with Black and Caput Mortuum Polychromos. Finally, I scanned it and had a go at it with my digital colored pencil brush and Photoshop, just to get the whole thing dark enough. I also did the whiskers digitally (much easier than doing them 'by hand' with colored pencils!)

Not sure what's going to be next!