Cat's style to me is contemporary pop art illustration. I'm not sure how she would explain her style and I should have asked her but it has a lot of beautiful bright colours and free thick confident strokes. Cat's house has beautiful bright paintings all over the walls and she does a lot of portraits of famous people like Johnny Depp, Jimi Hendrix, Ned Kelly, Marilyn Monroe and Nick Cave. My favourite painting was of Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas. I was lucky enough to be given a photo copy of the painting. Thanks Cat!
To prepare for the day we chose a portrait photo that had a lot of contrast in the light and dark colours. I decided to paint a portrait of my cousin Tehlia Lauerman who is absolutely stunning. I had decided to move away from doing my kids, because I do lots of things for them, so wanted something for me.
The night before I prepared by background on the 40 cm by 40 cm square canvas. I added gold, green, pink and blue metallic paints and using a tissue made a swirling design. The next day at the workshop I drew a grid on the photo and translated that as a chalk grid onto the canvas. Using the grid and a charcoal stick I drew the eyes, eyebrows, mouth, nose, and an outline of the face and hair.
I started by painting the eyes, eyebrows and mouth using thinker black strokes. I applied the white paint for the eyes and teeth. The side of the face, cheekbones and chin were accentuated by a black area of hair, and the remainder of hair was applied using a fan brush with purple, gold and black coloured paints in long confident strokes.
For the shaded areas on the face, around the nose, and cheek I used the green and purple coloured paints with a little medium to get some definition and bring the facial features out of the canvas. The mouth and eyes were touched up with a little paint to give more detail eg pink colour to the mouth and white reflection in the eyes.
Cat had provided me with instructions as I put the picture together. She was so calm and helpful. She managed to work her way around the group to help everyone too. It was just the right size group for her tuition. Little Owen was a pure angel and Cat would help me by holding him when he was a little unsettled. He fed twice, sleep and watched us girls paint. We had a break in the middle of the day to have lunch. Everyone brought a different plate to share. We all had a nice cold beer too.
At first I felt critical of my work but the next day realised how good it actually was. My cousin Tehlia and her sister Aleasha loved it too.
Sarah Gold did a blue Harriet (her daughter), Tania did Ashleigh (her daughter), Renae did Jai (her son), me did Tehlia (my cousin) and Sandi did the scary looking drag queen out of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Everyones paintings were really awesome. Well done girls and most important thanks to Cat who so fantastic. I hope I can do another workshop with Cat Leonard.
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