A Tiger Of A Different Stripe

First and foremost, I know that I have severely neglected this blog, and I sincerely apologize for that. This year has been a whirlwind of amazing changes and growth for me and I couldn't be more excited about it (although my head has felt like it was about to spin right off a few times!) If you are following me on any of my social networks then you've been right along for the ride and I hope you've enjoyed it! However, in all of the craziness, my poor blog was pushed to the back burner, but I'm pulling it up to the front and I will try to get better at keeping it up and sharing more in depth my processes and progresses with you guys because you are awesome and I wouldn't be who or where I am without you!

Lately I've been in experimental mode and trying a lot of new things with my artwork because I feel that is the best way for an artist to learn and improve! One such experiment is this painting I just finished that I'm calling, "A Tiger Of A Different Stripe."

I've always loved the idea of flat, graphic imagery mixed with fully rendered, three dimensional imagery so I wanted to create a piece that compared the two side by side. As always, I started with a sketch. I split it down the middle, shading one side and leaving the other side simple line work. Once I finished the face, I overlaid some tracing paper to design her hair and other elements.

After the general piece was figured out, I transferred the sketch to a surface to begin painting. (Please check out my earlier post about transferring a sketch to see how I do it.) I decided to work on gessobord for this piece instead of a wood panel to achieve a solid flat look without the the natural wood grain that usually flows through my work. I started with the side that I wanted to look more realistic with depth and shading.

I then moved on to the side that would have the graphic feeling to it. Just for some visual fun, I decided to swap some imagery, placing graphic over rendered and vice versa.

I loved the idea of using all things related to tigers for this piece because I felt like it all worked so well with what I was trying to visually create, so I used tiger lilies, tiger's eye beads, a tiger tattoo and of course little tiger striped hummingbirds. And thus, A Tiger Of A Different Stripe was born! The painting is 12"x12" acrylic on gessobord 2013.

Thanks for stopping by and I promise to post more and keep giving you guys a glimpse into my crazy little world. Enjoy!