Featured Artwork: Chocolate Bath

Chocolate Bath, 6.5 x 6.5, © Bernadette E. Kazmarski — Chocolate Bath, 6.5 x 6.5, 2018 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

It’s a little painting of a little black cat. I love to paint Mimi, I think because she is so self-aware and nearly all her poses are graceful and inspiring. Possibly it’s just because I love her so much.

Black cats have many colors in their fur. The warm sun shows off Mimi’s mahogany highlights and makes her look positively solid chocolate. I photographed Mimi at her bath in morning sun several years ago for this pose, but any of the many I’ve photographed are all favorites. This one won my personal contest for which was most paintable. Really, it was simply the one I kept visualizing. I took the photo on a January morning, and painted this image at the end of February, so it’s all very connected with the light at this time of year.

I especially liked this angle of her face, and this composition with her on the edge of the art. She was right next to the basement door frame. I painted in the door frame but I found the bit I’d included was distracting. Where I thought the geometric shape would coordinate with the geometry on the floor and both set off Mimi’s soft curves and colors, it was too strong a presence and I cropped it out. So it’s just Mimi in the sun. Keep the composition simple.

The biggest challenge is to paint a dark on dark composition with a black cat against a dark background, but Mimi is in warm tones of black and deep sienna and even purple and vermilion, while the background is a cool black with blends of cool violet, green and navy blue.

This was my painting from Day 23 of the February 2018 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. See other paintings in this and other painting challenges on the page Creative Challenges. I love these painting challenges for encouraging me to create new works.

I am honored

This little painting was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Fine Art by the Cat Writers’ Association in the 2018 Communications Contest. Click here to read more about the CWA, the contest and the awards.

Where to find this artwork

I sold the original in 2019, but I do have this artwork available in many different print forms—on paper and canvas and as a highest-quality giclee both smaller and larger than the original, and I also offer a framed print as I had framed the original, and as a greeting and note card. I don’t have the image on any gift items, at least not yet, in part because how dark the image is, and difficult to reproduce except on higher quality art papers. But I’m planning some new keepsakes and tiles which the square format will fit just purrfectly. Click this link to find all the various prints of this artwork I have in stock in my gallery on Portraits of Animals, and simply search the title, “Chocolate Bath” to find anything else I might have on hand at the moment.

Take a look at other featured artwork.

Each Wednesday I feature a piece of feline artwork from the archives to the present day, discuss its history and process, and often set it up as a free downloadable desktop calendar for just about every electronic device available.

A collection of 34 images of feline artwork

**The award-winning* Feline Style Sampler**

Now in its third printing, and its sixth anniversary!

Daily sketches, illustrations, commissioned portraits all in a small coil-bound gift book.

Click here or on the image to read more or find this book on Portraits of Animals.

*Certificate of Excellence, Cat Writers’ Association 2014 Communications Contest

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Copyright

All images and text used on this site are copyrighted to Bernadette E. Kazmarski unless otherwise noted and may not be used without my written permission, although links to your site are more than welcome and are shared. Please ask if you are interested in using and image or story in a print or internet publication. If you are interested in purchasing a print of an image or a product including it, check my animal and nature website Portraits of Animals to see if I have it available already. If you don’t find it there, visit Ordering Custom Artwork for more information on a custom greeting card, print or other item.