For my third post I wanted to explore more with painting techniques, specifically with oil painting/pastels. Through as early as I can remember the mention of tigers has always been in my life, from toys, to movies, to stories, etc. So while I was creating this piece I decided to make it a close up of a tiger with ocean blue eyes. Smith's Artist Handbook came in very handy as it had useful tips about blending colors, color choices and again the types of paper that would help create more texture and depth.
When first starting with a completely blank sheet the best decision is to start with a rough sketch on where the basic things are, in this case it was just the eyes, nose, and spots. Afterwards you go in with a base coat, and since the tigers main color is orange I went in with a light yellow/orange. The best way to create depth most of the time is to take the time to layer color after color, creating one smooth gradient. Because the tigers fur has a somewhat glare to it, in real life there would be some type of highlights in certain places, so with the help of the Artist Handbook I found the saying "a white
ground shows the purity of individual touches of color, especially if they're applied thinly." (Smith 191) to be the most helpful in this situation. I darkened the places were I thought there'd be more shadows, and lightly went over the places where there'd be highlights. Last but definitely not least, the back outlines of the tigers eyes, nose and spots. This final step ties together the whole entire picture as it makes certain things look a bit more bolder.
After creating the tiger I noticed some lines that could've been sharper and places that could've been smoother, besides using my fingers what could be some other techniques that could help accomplish a smoother gradient?
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