There is no stock cat design in the Ledgebay catalog, and honestly, a generic cat was probably not what you were after. What most people looking for this want is their own cat, and that is a custom kit made from a photograph. It is also the most-ordered kind of custom canvas there is.
Your cat, from a photograph
A custom paint by numbers kit takes a photo you send in and returns it as a printed canvas with every section outlined and numbered, plus a set of paints matched to it. Sizes are 12x16, 16x20 and 18x24, framed or unframed, and it is printed in the USA rather than drop-shipped from overseas.
Pets convert unusually well, and there is a reason for it. People photograph their animals close up, in daylight, against a plain sofa or floor, which is almost exactly the recipe for a good conversion: one clear subject, directional light, an uncluttered background. Dogs follow the identical recipe, with dark fur as the main complication.
Choosing the photograph
- Get down to the cat's level. A photograph taken from standing, looking down, flattens the face. Kneeling changes it completely.
- Daylight from a window, not a flash. A flash removes every shadow, and shadows are what make the finished canvas look three-dimensional. A cat sitting near a window on an ordinary afternoon is ideal.
- Eyes open and in focus. Everything else can be soft. The eyes cannot.
- Fill the frame. Head and shoulders is usually better than the whole cat, and much better than the whole cat in the whole room.
- Watch out for black cats. A black cat in shade is nearly one flat tone, and there is nothing for the conversion to separate. Photograph a black cat where the light is raking across the fur, so the sheen shows the shape.
If the only picture you have of a cat that has died is a slightly soft phone snap from years ago, it is still worth doing. The conversion simplifies anyway, so a soft original matters far less than it would for a photographic print. These memorial pieces are among the most common orders, and they land well as long as you expect a painting rather than a photograph.
What makes a cat hard to paint, and what the kit resolves
Freehand, a cat is difficult for three specific reasons.
Fur has direction. It flows around the muzzle, sweeps back over the skull, changes at the cheek ruff. Painted as texture without direction it reads as carpet. On a numbered canvas the section shapes already follow the fur, so simply painting inside the lines gets the direction right for you.
Eyes are half reflection. A cat's eye is a colored ring, a black pupil and a white highlight, and the highlight is what makes it alive. When you get there, paint the highlight last, keep it small and do not soften its edge.
Whiskers are lighter than what is behind them. You cannot draw them on at the end with a dark line. On a numbered canvas they are printed as their own pale sections, so use the finest brush in the kit and paint each one in a single stroke from the muzzle outward rather than filling it in like a shape.
The animal designs that do exist
If a big cat will do, Bamboo Tiger is a Collin Bogle design: a tiger's face looking out through bamboo. It is one of the more demanding kits in the range, mostly because the striped fur and the overlapping leaves are both made of many thin sections, so take the 16x20.
The rest of the animals collection is wildlife rather than pets: wolves in snow, a moose at a lake edge, songbirds, geese, swans, a hummingbird. There is no dog design, no deer design, no cow and no horse, whatever you may have read on this page previously.
What comes in a kit
- Pre-printed cotton canvas, rolled in a tube rather than folded, so it arrives without creases
- Acrylic paints, vacuum-sealed so they arrive moist
- Brushes in a range of sizes
- Printed instructions and an 11x17 printout of the design, which is what you read the numbers off
- Framed sizes also include a wooden tabletop easel
Framed canvases arrive pre-stretched on a wooden frame and hang on a nail the moment you finish. Unframed is cheaper and is trimmed close to the printed edge, so it suits mounting to a board rather than stretching over your own bars.
Working through it
Largest sections first, top of the canvas downward, one color at a time across the whole canvas before rinsing. Leave the eyes and whiskers until last, when your hand is warmed up and most of the canvas is already covered.
Expect ten to fifteen hours on a 12x16 and rather more on a 16x20, spread across as many evenings as you like. If a heavily used color runs low there is a matching extra paint set for every stock design, and the custom kit offers extra paint at checkout, which is worth taking on a large canvas where one fur color does most of the work.
The beginner's guide covers the mechanics, and other customers' finished canvases, pets included, are in the customer gallery.
