Time Lapse of Grisaille underpainting for a new Pet Portrait. Part 1.

If you're curious how I got about painting those fine detailed highly realistic paintings of pets and animals in acrylics.

Here is the first part of step one. I start on a medium neutral grey gesso back ground on canvas ( or water color paper). This enables me to easily render the forms of the cat, as well as build up the necessary details without having to worry about color. I am using this mid-tone grey as my "white fur" in the shadows. This allows me a lot of room to go towards actual white paint for the highlights. I'm constantly trying to avoid using my true white for the very end. I've struggled with white my entire life and this is a solution I've found to allow me the highlights I need. White only looks bright if it is against something much darker. It's important to build up the necessary contrast to make your highlights sing.

Time-lapse speed up 4000x