Monday, August 20, 2012

It's always better with a monkey bath

My brother David owns "The Bookman" a used bookstore in Orange California.  I can sit for hours on the floor in front of the animal section and look through the picture books they have in stock. The smokey misty feel of this tiger painting comes from a type of photo I've seen in one of those books.  Whenever you see those reverent photos of Snow Monkeys in the hot baths of Japan, with the human eyes, nearly asleep with their family, notice the mist  rising around them on the water.  When I was putting this tiger picture together in my head that smokey mist is what I kept seeing around her.  I started this painting with one of those steamy water photos.  I laid in different shades of rocks and mist with my big brushes.  The tiger was now blocked in and looking so interesting I realized the background was a bit boring.

Torrit the Tiger Progression 3

I added more rocks to the left of the tiger. dark crags in the background for depth and ferns in the foreground.  I thought the painting was really becoming interesting.  Now I began searching for water reference material. Reference photos are a big part of my work. I usually use somewhere between 3 to 20 reference photos for my paintings.

Torrit the TIger Progression 4

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