Create a tiger portrait acrylic painting

Learn to paint a really awesome looking tiger with Captain Ronnie, he'll show you how from start to finish. Pick up some wonderful tips and hints so you can make your tiger look reallly amazing.

Step 1

First of all you will need a sketch of a Tiger, I have provided one with this PDF. Once you have your sketch its time to grid it up. Basically all you need to do is create a grid of the same proportions over your sketch, then create a grid on a Mont Marte Single Thick Canvas 121 by 60 cm then re create what you see in each box! its pretty easy and a lot of fun.

Step 2

Time to block in all the blacks onto your your canvas. Tigers have fantastic markings, make sure to keep your markings not completely symmetrical, I think it looks more interesting that way. I’m using Silver Series Paynes Grey for the markings as I want to use Lamp Black later, remember nothing in nature is usually pure black, use it sparingly and you will get great results.

Step 3

Grab some Mont Marte Yellow Ochre and lay this down over everything! its totally cool to paint over the darker area’s of your canvas, its fine! Then I get to work doing some tonal work on the nose of the tiger with some of the Raw Umber, what this will do is start to create a 3 dimensional shape to his face as his nose will start to look like its moving forward. We are still doing underpainting at this stage so things can be a little messy, just have fun and get try to get neater as you progress.

Step 4

Now that I have my Tiger right where I want him its time to go to town on his fur and his eyes! I lay down some Chinese White around his eyebrows flicking my brush so they look nice and spikey. I then begin a glaze on his eyes using Cerulean Blue and some Cadmium Yellow. My glaze uses some Acrylic Medium in gloss, this will give my colours some translucency and aid in them mixing together. A suggested mixing ratio would be 3 parts gloss medium to one part paint. Starting to look pretty snazzy!

Step 5

Now that that I have completed all the base coats on everything its time to start detailing. I use a red glaze to his brow and his nose, then I apply 3 shades to his eyebrow fur, a blue a mid grey and a white. Wow his face is looking fantastic! Use the strokes in a whipping motion to get that flocking fur effect.

Step 6

Finally I get some of the Lamp Black and some Cadmium Yellow onto my tear off paper palette, I concentrate on the the Tiger's dark markings, trying to make them look more furry. I do this by whipping the black out over the white fur. I also add the yellow into the lighter area’s giving the image some real punch! There you have it, I hope you have enjoyed this lesson and don’t forget I’d love to see your creation, so get cracking and post up your Tigers to Facebook, everyone at Mont Marte will love to see them.