"Three Cats on Stairs" portrait in progress 2 - The staircase

I finished the underpainting for the “Three Cats on Stairs” portrait. I often make an underpainting to tint the paper a certain color, then put details over that with colored pencil. In this case, the watercolor “underpainting” will create the staircase on its own. The cats and the cushions on each step will be done with colored pencil. All three cats are black and white.

I’ve kept all the values of the staircase in the mid-range: from light grey to medium brown. The pure black and pure white of the cats will really pop when there is nothing as dark as the black, or as light as the white, in the scene surrounding them.

Now I have this nice grey paper to do the cats on - working darker and lighter than the paper value - with colored pencils. Yum!

(For non-artists: “Value” refers to how light or dark a color is.)

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Flannel Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper, 20 x 26 inches.

“Three Cats on Stairs” (Grace, Bonnie, and Morgan)

Commissioned by Tammy Cunningham.