"Star Souls Riding the Waves!"
His person asked me to do his portrait riding a dolphin. She wanted him to be looking straight out at the viewer with his intelligent, expressive, yellow-green eyes. Below left is the first scribble I did of this concept. As we talked, we expanded the dolphin concept to a pod of three, jumping out of ocean waves. Classy would be riding on the one leaping the highest. My client liked that idea, so I developed the scribble further. She mentioned that the Sirius star cluster was important to her, Classy, cats in general, and dolphins. I incorporated that constellation into my scribble after doing some research . I sent this scribbly-sketch (below middle) to my client for her input: we made a change in Classy's paw position. My refinements produced a "foundation drawing". It looks like what you'd see in a coloring book, and is used as my guide for the actual drawing. This is what I submitted for her approval (right).
With her 'go ahead', I transferred the image on to Arches 100% cotton paper and began building the colored pencil drawing, layer by layer. The last image, you see the "work in progress", about half-way done.
My friend, Mark, had asked me what color I was going to make the stars in the Canis Major constellation. I told him orange and yellow. He suggested we research what colors they actually emit, and so we did. We studied many charts to determine which were the most significant stars and made the diagram you see below. You can see we added one more star (Omicron 1) than I had originally plotted on the foundation drawing.
I continued to work on the dolphins and the waves, adding layer after layer of dry, sharp colored pencil. My goal was to intensify the colors and bring dimension to the piece by developing the shadows. After one last layer of black on Classy, I sized the star cluster and transferred it to the drawing. I continued to work until the drawing told me it was finished. A jpeg of the drawing was emailed to my client for final approval. She loved the piece, especially Classy's expression! She felt the motion and jubilation I had captured, and decided to call it "Star Souls Riding the Waves!". I finished the piece by writing the title and signing it with my name, copyright symbol and year.