sumi cat, ink line drawing on rice paper

It's been months seasons, since I've done any cat paintings. Since my muse, Sputnik, crossed that rainbow bridge over a year ago, I've slacked on the cat drawings.

Last weekend that changed as I got a custom request to do an 8 x 10 inch painting of my sumi ink kitty painting. I really enjoyed painting cats with sumi ink on rice paper and did about 15 that day.

Most of them went to the collage pieces pile while others got trashed. Four of them worked out as individual paintings.

Why did some get kicked out? The paper was too thin and ink was too thick so the paper buckled horribly in one painting. On another, even though I sprayed fixative on the painting, the ink smudged as I used too much water to put the backing on. Several got thrown out because the lines were too ragged.

When I work with sumi ink on rice paper, I know that I'm working myself up to that moment when all the variables meet, and the magic happens before my eyes. It reminds me of what my sixth grade teacher would tell me, "If at first you don't succeed, try try again."

Below is a time lapse video I made of one of the paintings which became the collage piece that is at the top of this post. The collage is available in my GalleryJuanaArt etsy. You'll also see the rice paper painting that I painted for the custom request.