"Three Cats on Stairs" portrait in progress 6 - White fur is easy on grey

I love doing white fur on gray paper. It's so easy. The gray paper creates the shadows between hairs or clumps of hairs.

Here's a closer view that shows what I'm talking about. White and two shades of light-grey pencils were used (French Grey 10% and French Grey 20%) to make the strokes that created the white parts of Bonnie's coat. The grey paper color was left showing to make the shadows between the hairs. I only added some darker grey in a few places like the center of Bonnie's mouth. You can see the white pencil strokes on the grey paper on the right edge of her shoulder, below the lowest right-hand whiskers.

Colored pencils are great for doing hair and fur.

Bonnie is the middle cat on the stair-steps.

“Three Cats on Stairs”

(Grace, Bonnie, and Morgan)

Commissioned by Tammy Cunningham.

🎨 Prismacolor pencil and watercolor underpainting on “Flannel Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper.