I have only just learnt how to oil paint and I was taught by the wonderful David Smith who was Head of Art at Felsted for eons. He advised me to always do an acrylic paint undercoat as a blue print under an oil painting as firstly it gives you a very good guide of where to paint in oils but also it dries really quickly and so you can get to work without waiting for days for it to dry. Today painting in acrylics first was a blessing as I made an error in my tiger painting.
Luckily today was really sunny and the sun is the best lamp we are ever going to get so I always photograph work on a good day and also check progress outside in the sun.
I had been working from a photo and realised that the tiger was actually under the water not half out of it. I had time to add more tiger and disguise my very visible line where I thought the water hit the tigers coat. It dried in 15 minutes and then I was able to wash a thin layer of oil paint mixed with white spirit over the tiger and the coat glowed through.
Had I done the tiger coat in oils I would have had to wait for hours or days until I could proceed.
I then focused on adding the whites in so as not to muddy my paints and then tackled the eyes as once you get the eyes right, everything else follows but for some reason my students are always scared of doing the eyes and leave them till last and there is too much pressure!
I hope you enjoy these images of the progress so far and hopefully the tiger will be completed soon!
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