"Faisca"

A portrait of our late cat and family member “Faisca”. He came to us after he was abandoned by a previous owner. He had an old soul and was surrounded by love for the rest of his life until his kidneys failed in 2016.

I used a vector-based drawing software to trace a photo of him. I made a paper stencil of him as I thought this suited the contrast of his black and white fur. I applied white spray paint to the stencil on a black background. The portrait remained like this for years and was displayed in his memory.

I revisited the painting recently and wanted to add more depth and texture to the background. In the right light, orange-brown highlights could be seen on Faisca’s fur. I attempted to convey this by applying a cracking medium to enable an orange-brown layer to appear in the cracks of deeper black paint mixture. The white spray paint was mostly left as it was originally applied.