Cat Nap

There are other cabins out in the area of ours. Some people name their cabins like they do in the south; think "Tara" and "Graceland". There are two cabins within our vicinity with names. One is Cat Ballou and the other is Cat Nap. The owners of Cat Nap are Kathy and Kelly; a very nice couple who have helped us out a time or two when we first started going up to this area. I decided to paint a "catnap" rock for their cabin.

First I start with a rounded, semi-smooth rock and several different acrylic colors. The first step is to sketch the cat shape on the rock. See the faint lines?

Next I painted around all the main parts in black and when that was dry, I added the white parts. Then I switched to gold and painted those areas. Next comes black. It helps to let the paint dry between steps or you end up having to go back over and clean up your smudged areas.

Next I painted in the pink ears and nose and the eyes in green (with some gold). When that dried I went over the whole cat with small fine strokes to show the hair using burnt sienna, gold, white and gray. Then I very carefully painted the iris on the eye, and touched up around the mouth and nose with black. Don't forget to add whiskers!

The finished cat was then covered with two coats of mod podge. You can use any kind of clear acrylic spray, but mod podge works great too. I got the pattern and idea from this book Painting Animals on Rocks by Lin Wellford.