Here is my latest painting of a white tiger. This painting was done using gouache paint on A2 watercolour paper. Before starting this one I thought it was about time I gave something back and decided to turn it into a bit of a tutorial for you guys. So here goes!

I started off with a sketch of the painting. Doing a sketch first is a good way to start, it helps get everything into perspective, making sure that everything is right in proportion to the rest of the painting (we don’t want any over sized heads etc do we!).

The next thing I did after doing my sketch was to start blocking in the colour. This is a very rough stage but something that needs to be done to make sure your colours are on the right path. For most of the block in of colour I used a sponge, my reason for this is that the sponge gave a nice rough texture so worker well for a blurring effect on the background as well as the rough rocky effect for the ground beneath the tiger. When it comes to doing animals, fur is usually involved and the best way to do fur is layering, so always start off with a darker colour as your blocking in colour.

Once you have blocked in the colours you can start adding some textures and shapes to the paintings like leaves. Add in dark tones and highlights to give the painting some depth.

 
Now that you have added in a good amount of your background, we can focus on the main part of the painting, the tiger! A good way to start off with tigers in particular is to draw in their stripes first. Doing this makes helps the end result have a more layered feel so that you haven’t just got blocked black lines on top of your nice fur texture.

Now it’s time for the fur. For is something that can never be rushed if you want a realistic finish. With fur you have to look at the direction it is going as well as where the fur starts and where it ends. Generally with all animals the fur will start from the tip of the tail and the feet and work its way to the nose. Using this direction start off with a darker colour, slightly lighter than your base colour and start adding fine strokes in varies rows, overlapping each row, make sure you vary your strokes too. Once you have worked your way right to the nose, go back to the beginning and do the same but using a lighter colour. You will need to do about 3 layers of fur, then finally do another layer with white to give the highlighted effect. To get the toned effect for the shadowed areas weigh for the fur to dry and then, using a light wash of a darker colour, go over the shadowed areas, the watery wash should just colour the fur rather than replace the paint. Play about with the stage with different shades to get the desired effect. Once you have finished the fur start working on finer details such as the eye and then look to the rest of the painting for areas that you can improve on.

Keep going until you really don’t think there is anything else you can do to it, you will know when you are finished when you are truly satisfied with the painting, don’t forget, sometimes going further and adding too much more can ruin the painting.

So there you have it, you can also use many techniques from this tutorial in many other paintings so just give it a go!