New Watercolor Painting : Prancer WIP

Last year over the Holidays my wife and I picked up a kitten at the animal shelter here in Reno, her name is Noel. She has been so much fun we decided to get her a companion this year. So we went to the shelter and got another kitten. This one we named Prancer and she is a lot of fun as well.

I took this picture a few days after we picked her up and I love the back lighting on her frizzy fur. She looks like she has static cling to the max and she is very soft. Anyway I haven't done a watercolor in quite a while and I thought this would be a challenging subject so I decided to do a small water color of Prancer.

Here is the painting as it sits on my dining room table right now.

Prancer WIP

 I will post my progress step by step as I go along just like I did for Joie de Vivre. 

To see each step before this read on after the break. 

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This is a half sheet of smooth cold press paper and I didn't bother to stretch the paper for this one. I just taped it down to my board, wet the paper thoroughly and let it dry. There will be some buckling early on in the painting process but I am OK with it.

First I painted maskoid on the fine highlighted hair that was back lit so I could easily keep the white of the paper. I normally don't use maskoid and try to just leave the white areas by painting around them but the hair is so fine and it is really the main interest of painting this particular image for me. 

After it had dried I misted water on the entire sheet and began roughing in the darker areas of the painting.

Watercolor is always a slow gradual process for me, layer by layer building up to the final density of the paint. Here I put a thin wash of red and yellow on the ears, nose and eyes.

In this frame I am continuing to darken the background and shadow areas. 

This is where I am right now and I have added a little detail to her fur and eyes as well

 as continuing to add darker layers to the background.

I will paint more today, one layer as soon as the last dries until I get close to a final painting, in my watercolors I have to be careful not to overwork them I start painting like I am doing an acrylic painting and then I am not happy with it. I like my watercolor loose, so we'll see if I can pull that off this time.