Cat Painting # 2

Willem's Kat and Pieter's Salt Cellar, oil on ACM panel, 18 1/2" x 19 1/2", 2016

Recently I've taken an interest in painting cats. For the past couple of years I've painted mostly dog themed stuff along with a testy looking rabbit and some shrimp loving hamsters. Now I'm onto cats.

Once again I've made a 17th Century Dutch inspired still life and included a modern pet. Scottish Fold cats did not exist in the 17th Century. At least that's what my research has concluded. But in my art the accuracy of time is of no matter. If I want to include a pug among some 17th Century still life then bam! There he/she is about to twerk next to the oysters and roemer glass. In a later post I'll talk more about combining modern pets with still life.

One of my favorite still lifes is Willem Heda's 1635 masterpiece, "Still life with gilt goblet." Check out the Rijksmuseum's image for some insane high resolution zooming- https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/mijn/verzamelingen/33941--mathijs-van-soest/willem-claes-heda/objecten#/SK-A-4830,0

This painting has always intrigued me because of the skill Heda used to render the materials he's depicted and the painting painting has a nice atmospheric quality. I also find the palette he has chosen to be exquisite in it's simplicity. The part that I love the most is how the roemer glass contrasts with the background. That's the atmosphere I mentioned earlier.

For awhile I had contemplating trying a Willem Heda inspired still life. I was going to do that last year with a black pug but I ended up painting an anthropomorphic pug based on Bartholomeus van der Helst's "Treaty of Munster" banquet painting instead. So this painting is my Willem Heda influenced piece. It actually combines Heda with Pieter Claesz and Jan Davidsz de Heem ( for the lobster), but Heda was my inspiration for the overall look. 

I threw in the Scottish Fold wearing a circa early 1630's ruff as worn by Rembrandt and dudes seen in Frans Hals paintings. At first I was going to have the cat climbing up to the table as I've done with several of my other paintings. However I decided to have an anonymous pair of hands hoist the cat into the composition to make it even weirder.

As with all of my paintings from the past 3 years I have used Rublev Oil colors. I have different palettes which I use depending on what I'm painting. This painting used a variation of my 17th Century Dutch Still Life palette along with few extra additions. The colors I used consisted of Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Venetian Red, Ercolano Red, Roman Black Earth, German Vine Black/ later on Bone Black, Van Dyck Brown( Cassell Earth), Genuine Naples Yellow, Lead Tin Yellow Type II, Malachite, Vermillion, Minium, Transparent Mummy, Lead White # 2, and Venetian White. My medium of choice was Venetian Medium though I did dabble with Italian Varnish a bit. I'm still learning how to use the Italian Varnish with my technique.

This is a detail shot of the texture on the lemon and knife handle which I invented, inspired by fruit knives in Pieter Claesz and Heda still lifes.

The lobster came from a Jan Davidsz de Heem pronk still life. I enjoyed painting the lobster in the tabby cat painting and I had to do another one. Colors I used for this were minium, genuine vermllion, Ercolano Red, Venetian Red, and a bit of transparent mummy. Minium is a bight, fiery, opaque orange that costs less than a tube of modern Cadmium Orange. I bought a tube three years ago and recently I had to buy another because the other tube hardened and was unusable. Compared to other Rublev colors minium has a short shelf life and dries faster than other lead colors. I plan on using it more this year. 

Pieter's salt cellar, a prop which Pieter Claesz used in a few of his still lifes. I'm still mastering painting glass and this roemer was studied from Heda's roemer that I love so much. For the glass I tried out some malachite which I mulled myself using pigment from Natural Pigments. 

Finally here is a detail shot of the oyster plate and bread roll. The texture on the white of the bread was created using Lead White # 2 straight out of the tube. I also used pure lead white utilizing it's wonderful stringiness to create the rims of the oyster shells and highlights on the oyster flesh.

I'm taking a short break from Dutch still life over the next month or so as I focus on still lives I am working using actual still life set ups, a painting commission, and a landscape. This summer I have a pronk still life planned which will be a large, elaborate, ambitious project. I still haven't decided whether there will a dog or cat included. Maybe I'll do both.