I went as far as I could on the kitten before adding the background. I'd like some of the fur on the ears and head to extend over the background color so it was time to decide exactly what kind of a background suited this fella. I did a little research on Maine Coon cats and learned that their coats have evolved to accomodate cold weather conditions. I decided to create a winter-like setting by mixing up some winter colors, in this case Payne's grey with FUB, and doing a wash which turned into more of a controlled pour. I tilted my board on a 45° angle and did the left side first with the painting turned upside down. When that was dry I did the same thing on the right side with the board right side up so as not to disturb the paint on the kitten. I threw a bit of salt on while the paint was still wet to add some snowflakes and Voila! Windy winter sky. The results are subtle and not as grey as they appear in the image.
In my last post I mentioned that I wanted to increase some of the values, mostly on the stripes in the fur. There's obviously some overkill in a few areas so I will have to adjust the other stripes accordingly. There's work left to do on the ears and head and some tweaking to do on the exterior of the body.
