This is a Step-by-step demo in pastels on sueded matboard of a "Rare Indian Peakitty".

I start to fill in the midtones with a nice, bright turquoise blue.

I begin to touch in the feather details on the tail with some orangy browns and a golden green, and on the cheeks with some pale greenish blues and creams.I’m still working back and forth with the turquoise and the dark blue, as I add the paler colors. I’ve also started using an ultramarine blue, so that the red tones in that blue add some vibrancy to the combination with the greeny-blues.

Working on the wings, I find that peacocks have golden-green wings that sort of fade into a brownish gold color. So I work the wings using a variety of greens and golds, with some cream for highlights. I decide to make my cat’s wings mostly gold and green, with the wingtips in a rusty golden-orange. These wing colors are going to help me balance the colors in the composition, and will help me to visually pull the wing forward and around the cat, so it looks more three-dimensional.

A close-up shows the peacock feather "eye" motif brought up onto the ears.

I've finished up the colors and tones on the wings and been working the cloth. I still need to define the shadows on the cloth. Also, the background is too empty and is not working well with the cat. I run through several ideas before deciding on the direction I want to go with it.

I’ve finished up the darks in the cloth, and made some dapples of gold, cream and a little green in the background.I drag an inch-long cream pastel on its side, across the top of the piece to make sunbeams. I blend these with some gold and a little green into the sunbeam, and use the cream to blur where the sunbeams hit the wing highlights, creating a blurry “glare” and a haze.

This is the final scanned image. The colors here are far closer to the original than in the other images. Hope you enjoyed it!

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