pscat

Gallery › Painting

Mochi in Denim Blue

A portrait study of a Pomeranian in broad oil strokes against a scraped denim-blue canvas.

Mochi in Denim Blue, an oil-painting style portrait of a golden Pomeranian with upright ears against a denim-blue canvas
Click the picture for the full-size render.

How it is made

A close-cropped study made from a photograph. Broad overlapping pkoil masses model the orange-sable dog, pkdry breaks the silhouette into a furry edge, and selectively crisp eyes and nose hold the likeness. The result is an interpretation, not a traced copy.

The reference

This piece begins with a real photograph rather than a geometric system. The interpretation keeps Mochi's upright ears, orange-sable and cream markings, enormous reflected eyes, compact dark nose and denim-blue setting. It trades individual hairs and clothing folds for directional loaded-brush masses and cross-woven canvas marks; the aim is a recognizable oil study, not a traced copy or a claim of physical pigment simulation.

Original close-up photograph of Mochi, a golden Pomeranian
Reference photographThe face, markings, expression and denim setting that the painting keeps.
Mochi in Denim Blue, an oil-painting style portrait of a golden Pomeranian with upright ears against a denim-blue canvas
The PostScript versionpkoil block-in and fur planes, pkdry contour breakup, deterministic seed 27.

Details

Category
Painting
Tags
portrait reference study
Libraries
artkit, paintkit
Added
2026-08-27
Built in
issue #100
Page size
720 × 900 points

Source

View source the whole program in a scrolling window, or read gallery/mochi_denim_blue.ps on GitHub. To draw it yourself, from a checkout of the repository:

pscat --page 720x900 gallery/mochi_denim_blue.ps
The first 40 of 287 lines of the source 
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Title: Mochi in Denim Blue — an oil study
%%Creator: Codex with pscat paintkit
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 720 900
%%EndComments

(lib/artkit.ps) run
(lib/paintkit.ps) run
27 srand

% A close-cropped oil study after Mochi's reference photograph. Broad
% Reference: gallery/references/mochi.jpg (the original 3000x4000 photo).
% pkoil marks establish the canvas, skull, and coat before the features;
% smaller loaded marks pull fur across those masses. Crispness is saved
% for the eyes and nose, as it would be in an alla-prima student portrait.

% --- palette ---------------------------------------------------------------
/denim0 [0.035 0.105 0.155] def
/denim1 [0.055 0.19  0.28 ] def
/denim2 [0.085 0.29  0.40 ] def
/denim3 [0.16  0.39  0.50 ] def
/umber  [0.20  0.115 0.065] def
/sienna [0.42  0.235 0.105] def
/russet [0.61  0.335 0.135] def
/ochre  [0.79  0.505 0.205] def
/honey  [0.90  0.655 0.335] def
/gold   [0.95  0.765 0.47 ] def
/cream  [0.965 0.885 0.69 ] def
/light  [1.0   0.965 0.82 ] def
/ink    [0.025 0.028 0.027] def
/iris   [0.105 0.095 0.075] def
/steel  [0.31  0.48  0.55 ] def
/rose   [0.50  0.22  0.19 ] def

% --- paint helpers ---------------------------------------------------------
% The caller constructs a centerline path, then supplies color/width/ridges.
/oilpaint { % color width ridges -> -
    /opr exch def /opw exch def /opc exch def
    gsave
    opc aload pop setrgbcolor

On GitHub