On My Easel

I'm moving right along on my tiger painting, really enjoying the large scale work. I didn't realize I would enjoy this so much. For the longest time I just avoided large scale and would continue to return to the security of my miniature paintings. In 2009 I started an 18"x36" which was the largest painting I had ever painted. I finally finished, but it took several months. I didn't have my David Sorg easel then so it wasn't easy working on it using my Julian Sketchbox easel. Some of it I actually just leaned the canvas up against a wall and sat on the floor to paint.


I always like to get paint on the canvas right away and cover up the white. So the first thing I did was outline the tiger, figuring out how much area it would take on the canvas for the composition I had selected. Getting the eye lined up with the chin and aligned with the front leg are the first things I figure out before I proceed with the painting. Once I'm confident everything is lined up correctly, then I continue to add paint, using a lighter hue of the main color, in this case, a burnt sienna lightened with yellow ochre and white. There are parts of the Tiger that will remain this light color and other areas that need to be darkened.

In the lastest picture here, I started adding the stripes in the tiger's coat. I haven't developed them yet but wanted to put them in place. And when I continue in a couple of days, I can develop the stripes and also the fur in between them to blend them together in a realistic way. Although I'm going for a more painterly look in my art and moving away from photo-realism, I still want my paintings to look believable, just more stylistic.