Commission for  tbutargensis of his snow leopard Samantha enjoying a good read after the evening shower. She is quite an eclectic reader and art collector, and also very fond of animals as she works in an animal rescue center.

After many experiments I settled on what I feel is a very reliable core palette for my current goals. It's made of three low saturation primaries (yellow ochre, venetian red and indigo) along with three high saturation primaries (cadmium yellow dark, magenta and cyan) plus titanium white and titanium yellow for the lights, an unusually opaque brand of burnt umber for the darks. These are the colors I use the most along with golden ochre which is my default choice for underpainting; other color tubes are brought in only as needed and as little as possible.

Oil on canvas, 30x50 cm.

EDIT: reuploaded a much more color accurate version!