Cave Painting Progress: Cat faces

I am an unabashed cat lover, having been managed by cats since 1972. Fitting, then, to honor cats in the Lost Cave Paintings of Saint Paul Installation for the WARM Mentor-Protege Show.

Russian Blue Ancestor

The Cat Panel

August 19 work-in-progress

The Cat Panel documents some of the ancestors of present-day Saint Paul Cats, including the Russian Blue and Striped Cats.

Digging through my shapes-and-templates archive, I found a cat that I had used for a needlepoint piece, and for two of my very earliest cat paintings. What better cat to honor the Ancestors?

Friends of the Cats

Like all of the panels, this one has both hummingbirds and frogs.

First Face

What about the faces?

Rendering the faces is the next challenge, and I can't do too much navel-gazing about it. Unlike the  Great Cave Owl, who sat on my easel for six months while I practiced painting owl faces, this piece is for a show that opens in a few weeks.  (Join us for the Celebration on Saturday October 18 from 6 to 9 at the Grain Belt Bottling House.)

A piggish experiment.

One thought is to make the faces even more 3D than the "cave gesso" provides. This pig is my first experiment. Using Golden Brand Light Molding Paste, is an interesting idea, but I am a 2-D artist who has always thought that sculpture was an inaccessible magical skill.

A molded pig