Animals in pastels on Velour paper

My favourite paper for painting animals in pastels is now, hands down, Velour. The soft pigment on the velvety surface is as close to tactile heaven if there ever is one. The more I use Velour, the more I seem unable to work with other types of paper. It's like having a McD shake after you've tried Shake Shack's. You can't go back. Velour takes getting used to, in terms of how pastels blend and appear on it, but once you get the hang of it, the outcome is simply beautiful.

Here are a few recent pieces of animals I did on Velour. This first one is my absolutely favourite and it's a milestone piece for me. I was intrigued by the challenge of the water bowl and wanted to try it. To be honest, the final result surprised even myself, and reminded me how far I've come.

Incidentally, soft kitty is in pink, peach, purple and blue with highlights. There's absolutely no brown in the fur - boring brown has been relegated to the fence. 

The next piece was of otters.  

Two little otter baes
Loving sunny days
One plants a kiss and says,
"We love PDAs!" 

The otter symbolises God's provision for me, which I blogged about here. Hence, I made a promise to paint otters every year as a reminder of His goodness. I last painted otters not a year but six months ago in December 2020, also on Velour paper, and I was deeply grateful to see the progress I've made. 

6 months ago

Finally, I painted a piece of a pair of zebras. This piece was a flop to me and I called it "50 shades of meh". 

 

This was a planned piece - I thought painting a pair of monochrome zebras against a backdrop of a riot of colours would be a clever message. As usual, trying to be too clever backfires. I quickly got sick of drawing stripes and left it to languish for days. Finally completed it but it's unpolished and leaves me cold. Doubt I'll be painting zebras again any time soon.

It's ok - I don't expect masterpieces each time and art is about experimentation. So much more out there to be painted!

Here's a video of how I painted a cat's ear (first imae) in 5 minutes.