Cat & Budgie Pastel Painting Feedback

Pam has sent me her lovely painting of a Cat and Budgie and has asked for my comments.Pam stated that she imported the Budgie from another source and changed the cat colours using artistic license. Pam was not happy with the white hairs and asked what could be done to improve these, so let me deal with this point first.As you all know I always recommend using very sharp white pencils when placing white hairs over stronger tones and although this would have worked better here I feel that Pam has done a good job of representing them. There are a great many video clips of white hairs examples on the member’s site that I am sure Pam will be able to sort this problem out.There is another point I would like to make here that is the question of how and when to use artistic license. In the case here I would only suggest that artistic license be used if there was another photo of a cat that could be used as a reference.The reason being that just to change colours without a reference could be counterproductive. I feel that Pam would have been better advised to follow the very attractive colouring of the cat in the photo rather than change the colours, artistic license could be used on the markings etc.I love the background colours but feel that the colour indicated by the black arrow would have also worked better on the other side too, see red arrow. As it stands at present the background colour does look like this section is unfinished.Although I have made these suggestions I am sure that you will all fall in love with this painting, so well done Pam.