Alan, 10x8, Oil

Another painting of my cat Alan.

Celebration of Creativity, Fine Art Exhibit and Sale, March 6 - 9, 2014, Beaverton, Oregon

Southminster Presbyterian Church is having their 36th Annual Exhibit. Location is 12250 SW Denney Road, Beaverton, OR 972008. I hope you will stop by one of the 4 days to see this fabulous show. This is my second year in the show. I have 9 rabbits paintings on display. Here are 5 of the 9 paintings I will be showing. Friday, March 7th from 7pm to 9pm is "Meet the Artist". I will be present at the show at that time.

Three new commissions in January, Abigail - Louie - Brewster, Oil

Three commissions for January: Bichon, Louie, 12x12 Corgie, Brewster, 8x8 Rabbit, Abigail, 12x12 Thanks everyone.

Paws and Claws, 14x11, oil

Paws and Claws finished.

My website: www.lorrainebushek.com

To see more of my paintings please visit my website. www.lorrainebushek.com Thanks.

Painting Alan

My cat, Alan, is the subject of this painting. He was relaxing in the sun on the living room floor when I snapped the photo I used for this painting. I show here the steps I go through when painting. First, I tone my canvas, in this care, with Gamblin's Perylene Red. Once the canvas is dry I work out the composition. I draw the layout with a brush in raw umber and turpinoid. I use turpinoid because it is easy to wipe out what I do not like as the drawing progresses. Once I am satisfied with the brush drawing I let the painting dry. Even when dry I can go back in with turpinoid to make changes to the composition if needed. It took about 3 hours go get the brush drawing where I wanted it. Once this stage was dry I painted in color. As you can see I started with Alan's face. When I have a good start on the face I go directly to the eyes. I spent a lot of time getting the eyes correct. The viewer naturally is drawn to the subjects eyes so that is where I put the most detail. After the eyes are complete I paint the body. I spend much less time on the body and I don't put a lot of detail in Alan's stripes. The subject of this painting is the cat's paws and claws so I have made them a bit bigger than normal to emphasize them. The rest of the painting is support for the main subject and, therefore, I painted it with less emphasis.

Rabbit on a Crate with an Apple, 24x24, 0il

I thought it would be funny to show the progression I go through when doing an oil painting. So, this is the progression of a painting of my friend and fellow Rabbit Advocate Kem Sypher. Though Snowflake is no long on this earth Kem, a photographer extraordinaire, has many photos of her which he has shared with me. I always start out with a canvas toned with burnt Sienna, either oil or acrylic, it doesn't matter at this stage. This canvas was toned with oil burnt sienna. Then I layout the subject matter in the Bistre style (no that isn't a typo). You can look that up on Google; basically it is painting in one color using the wipe out method to achieve the under painting. I don't move on to color until I have the layout perfect. This saves a lot of time when I start painting with color. Also, I don't have to go back in and change any compositional mistakes if I paint the under painting is Bistre. Once the under painting is exactly the way I want it I start laying in color. My darks are painted thinly and the lights are painted very thick. The painting goes very fast this way. The first afternoon I laid out the composition (Bistre). The next day the under painting was dry enough to start laying in color. It only took another afternoon to paint the rabbit and the apple. Now, I had to let that dry to paint the crate. Here you can see the progression of the painting. It isn't finished yet. I'll add the final photos of the painting as I complete the next stages. Oops! The last photo should be the first photo, showing how I start the layout. More to come.....