Rats

The rat picture thumbnails are clickable and go to my site, rat portraits are in the gallery section and you can leave comments there if you wish :) A4 rat pastel portrait



Graphite ACEO mini rat portraits 2.5x3.5 inches





Oil rat painting 4x6

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Here is the work in progress for my latest rat oil painting.

1. My reference photographs of the rats for the painting, one is of a rat I had a few years back and the other I found in the Wetcanvas image ref library.


2.
I took both rat images into photoshop along with the bottle and played around until it looked correct and saved it in grayscale mode to see the tonal values, which will change according to the light source in the painting, then it was ready to sketch out on the canvas.


3.Next I sketched out the composition on Daler & Rowney canvas paper lightly in charcoal.


4.Thinned oils were then blocked in a bit to start, getting rid of the pure white canvas helps at this stage.


5.I then begun to work from the top left corner on the bottle and dropped in some darker values.


6.Next I layed in more colours after drying, defining the rats.


7.It should be complete in a couple of layers as I'm now adding a tiny amount of drying medium to the paint and less linseed oil/ thinner.


8.The second last layer now, the rats feet, books and overall detail will be worked on when this one has dried.


UPDATE COMING SOON! :)