Tiger Painting – latest update (wildlife art)

At this stage I have finished blocking in the very basic colours and form with acrylic paint – next comes the exciting part, brining this tiger to life with oils

Hope you are all enjoying this tutorial so far and staying tuned for more.

New Tiger Painting (Commission) – work in progress

Hi Everyone,

Here’s a quick glimpse at my latest commission a magnificent Siberian Tiger in very dramatic lighting.

The 1st photo shows the initial drawing on the canvas

The 2nd photo shows that I have applied a quick burnt sienna, acrylic wash over the drawing, wiping out the highlights with some tissue whilst the wash was still wet.

The 3rd photo shows the very start of the acrylic underpainting. As this painting will have such a contrast between the both sides of the painting I wanted a good underpainting to work from – hence the acrylics

New Painting Just Started! – Siberian Tiger

I’ve just started my latest commission – a huge tiger portrait with real dramatic lighting

Here’s the initial drawng on canvas – many more step by steps to come real soon

Would you like to buy me a Coffee?

The blog has been free for quite a few years now, as has most of the tutorial sections on my Learn to Paint Site – and I wouldn’t have it any other way – I love to teach, always have.

However if anyone really likes the blog / sites and would like to buy me a coffee or make a donation to help keep the site etc running then it would be greatly appreciated

All you have to do is click the – “Buy me a coffee” Image which should be on the right hand side, near the top

and then just make a payment – no matter how small to me, in the window that opens – simple as that.

Much appreciated – Jason

Lion – Limited Edition Now Released

Just a quick update to my blog……..

The African Lion print has now been quality approved by myself, so it’s now available as a limited edition Canvas and Fine art paper print.

Please visit the prints section of my site to place an order for your print

Latest Print coming Soon – Giraffe!

Just wanted to give everyone a quick update – the Giraffe original has now been finished!

I have decided to release this painting as a Limited Edition on canvas and fine art papers, both printed to my usual museum quality / luxury – I will release it in the prints section of my gallery site soon, if you would like to reserve a print please just email me.

Painting Thin Lines and Fat over Lean – a blog question

I had a question from one of my Blog visitors a short while ago and thought my answer might be of use to others, so here it is -

Here’s the question

“Hi Jason,
Thanks for putting this up. Excellent info. I have some additional questions though.
I was wondering how you deal with the lean and fat rule in oil-painting since you mention a wash over previous layers. Also can you give some information about the consistency of the paint you use for whiskers? I always have trouble with these long, clean curvy lines, even with a rigger brush. The paint just doesn’t flow from the brush and when I thin the paint to improve the flow it becomes too transparent.
How fast do you paint 1 whisker, is it a quick swoosh of the brush or do you slowly drag the brush along the surface.? Hope you have some tips because these are the things that you normally don’t read in tutorials”.

Here’s my answer

“Good questions, I use Alkyd Oils which dry quite fast and hard, and currently I thin my paints with an Alkyd type thinner (I’ll find out the make and post here), similar to Liquin, which improves the flow when required, I’m not using any other oils etc so I think that takes care of any fat over lean type stuff.

I honestly don’t worry about that stuff too much myself, as I’m not doing anything to excess.

If I need the paint to slip / flow even more, eg when painting whiskers, I will also add a little odorless paint thinners to the mix. So to paint a whisker I would get some paint (white for instance) dip my brush in alkyd thinners, mix it a bit, then dip my brush in a little odourless thinners and mix that in too.

There is a fine line between too little and too much alkyd thinners and odourless thinners, which as you have found, will cause the transparency of the paint. Practice is the only way to really know.

I paint a whisker in one movement, at a moderate speed approx 1 second to do 5-6 inches.

Sometime, but not always I will need to carefully go over the whisker a 2nd time to make it nice and opaque (let the 1st layer dry 1st).

One important thing to consider is the texture of the surface you are painting on, ie if you are using a rough grade canvas it will be VERY difficult to get a nice even flowing line, when compared to a finely sanded board, for instance.

I use a fine grade canvas – often called a portrait canvas.

To make it even finer you could paint an additional layer of gesso on top, let dry fully then sand with some very fine sand / glass paper”. This will certainly make painting flowing lines MUCH easier.

Alternatively prepare your own painting panels out of MDF (UK term I think) and a few coats of Gesso, sanding between coats. This is certainly the easiest surface to paint flowing lines on and is great untill you get a lot of experience.

Hope that helps

How to Paint Fur – Tiger Tutorial

From the Poll it appears that most of you would like to see more fur tutorials and tips, so here is an excerpt from an article I wrote in Artists & Illustrators magazine, if you didn’t see the article in the mag hopefully you will find this of use

It might appear that I painstakingly brush in each individual hair. But that type of painting can become very tedious, so I concentrate on just giving the impression of detail such as fur and hair.

I use fast-drying Winsor & Newton Alkyd Oil paints – which consist of pigment in oil modified alkyd resin – so there is minimum waiting time between drying stages.  Whether you paint tigers, gorillas or poodles, the following stages will help you depict realistic fur…

Image number 2) This is the blocking-in stage. Paint the colour and tone deep down in the fur, the area you can see between all the surface hairs – it’s frequently a dark brown or grey. At this stage, don’t worry about details. Your aim should be to give the animal a solid structure. The details will come soon enough, and you will need something quite dark underneath them.

 

Image Number 3)  This is really a mid-texture stage.

Remember: fur is made up of not just hair but also air. There is usually depth to it, so try to imagine what it would feel like as you paint it. This stage helps to create the appearance of depth and thickness to the fur – I frequently do it while Stage 2 is still wet. Use quite loose brushstrokes, especially when painting long fur, and try to detach yourself from thinking about where each stroke is going to go as you paint. If you think about it too much it can look regimented and unrealistic. Always paint in the direction of the fur’s growth.

 

Image number 4) Complete this stage after Stage 3 has fully dried (essential if you are going to glaze). Begin by knocking Stage 3 back with a fairly dark glaze (a thin wash of colour). This then automatically becomes mid-depth fur. Then, when it is still wet, add the final details using a rigger brush. It’s surprising how few details need to be applied over the other layers to give the illusion of fur.

 

Image number 5) Refine the fur, glazing where necessary and adding a touch more detail here and there – in the case of this tiger, whiskers and the white hairs on the surface of the coat.

Hope you liked it and don’t forget to leave your comments

Learn to paint site

online gallery

Giraffe Painting – Finished

Well thanks everyone for completing that last poll – very interesting – I’ll adjust my new posts to cover your comments:)

Interestingly composition received quite a large number of votes and for this latest Giraffe painting I felt the composition was lacking somehow.

I was happy with the grass and also the giraffe, but although the giraffe was supposed to be moving, he / the scene, seems somewhat static. One way to make things look  like it’s moving is to blur it a little, I’m sure you have all seen photo’s of racing cars that are blurred a bt to make the car look like it’s moving fast. But that wasn’t going to work in this instance, he just wasn’t moving THAT FAST! Ha… I just wanted the giraffe to look like he was gentle walking – so what could I do?

Well I finally decided that by adding some birds, moving from the giraffe towards the tree it would lead the viewers eye, creating that subtle feeling of movement I was after. Also to make the composition more pleasing I chose an odd number of birds (3 oxpeckers), and made sure they were all unevenly spaced too.

Hope you like the finished result (note due to the contrast of the photo the giraffe looks a little cut out – it’s better in real life

Poll Results – Strange but TRUE!!!

Well thanks everyone for completing my latest poll, I would NEVER have predicted that result, would you? - Basically none of you (that answered the poll) are real beginners, but there is an almost complete 50 / 50 of advanced and novice artists!

I have a feeling that the beginners just haven’t taken the poll, but rushed off to search for more blogs and sites with tutorials instead? Not sure, I could be wrong.

So with those results it looks like I should spend less time posting about the very basics of painting and more time concentrating on things like composition etc.

But what I think you want to see is probably going to be different than what you REALLY want to see. So rather than give you all the time consuming hassle of emailing me (please email if you want though) here’s a list of common things you might want to see more of – just select which best fits you and then the next Blog post I write can cover those areas in more depth – Sound like a fair exchange   ?