Ragamuffin Cat in a Basket Oil Painting

Jon Amdall

12 months ago

Although I mostly focus on portraits of people, I also practice animals occasionally. I’ve mostly painted dogs and cats, and the most frequent professional model I use is our family cat. The featured oil painting in this post is of our little Ragamuffin cat sitting in a basket. This was painted alla prima in somewhere between an hour and 90 minutes, which I think turned out well. Likenesses are kind of tricky for animals, but I think this really does look like him.

I think I’m getting better at rendering fur, which I find challenging, but I can see there’s still a lot of room for improvement. I think this is just something that needs more practice repetitions. This cat study was painted on 9 X 12 oil paper and was my 245th overall. I’ll follow my standard format here, which is to share an image of the painting, the Instagram time lapse, and some verbiage specific to the piece. Then, I’ll embed the YouTube discussion video, including another brief writeup on the topic, materials used, and some other hopefully useful information. I’ll wrap the post up by sharing the YT Shorts time lapse and some other similar painting videos.

Our family cat sitting in a basket, oil on paper.

Shop link related to this piece:

Ragamuffin Cat in a Basket, Giclee Art Print

$80

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I use a lot of browns and grays in all my paintings, but when I paint animals, I expect (and hope) that this will work to my advantage. I haven’t found that to be true though really. In fact, I think my tendency to use linseed oil to thin paint when needed actually shows up more in these pet portraits. It leaves a pretty distinctive look, and I think I need to pay more attention to those areas, going over them again with darker/thicker paint.

Some other topics explored in the embedded video: This video features a brief discussion of my approach to painting animal fur, which I’ve mostly done for portraits of cats and dogs. I also mention my relatively light experience painting pets and other animals, but that I have improved a bit since I first started with oils. I also talk a little about a second approach I’ve seen other artists use, which is intriguing and appears very effective – layering thick paint across the entire surface, then wiping it away with a paper towel.

Here are some additional details of the video I shared on YouTube, including materials used and some other information. I’ll also embed the Shorts video, although it’s kind of redundant to the Instagram Reels post, as I typically just share the same edited vertical time lapse on both platforms. As I mentioned, it was my 245th total oil painting and was originally done in February 2025. The main video I’ve embedded is around the usual amount, and is similar in format and presentation to some of the others I’ve done (also linked after the timestamps).

Discussion Video Timestamps: