Tips and Advice for Shirley's Tiger Painting

Shirley sent in her tiger picture that she has completed and requested some advice and tips on how to improve it. Shirley is a member of the website and as such can send in her work for feedback. Shirley writes:

Hi Colin and Steve,I have just finished the attached Tiger and would like feedback on it. I don't have a scanner so have taken photo with my phone. I know some of the markings aren't an exact copy but I like to put my own spin on things.I bought your "Draw and paint cats and dogs" video and booklet a few years ago and loved it.Thank you

To listen or read Colin's advice please see below:Hi Shirley. Steve sent me the picture of your tiger you've just done and you made a great job of that. A couple of little things I would point out to you. One is really to put a background on. Now the reason I say that is because if you look at the bottom of the picture where you have just under your name where you've got the edge of the tiger it always looks when you look at a picture that hasn't got any graduation or grading off. It looks as though the head's been cut off. So what you can do with that is just put a very simple background on.We have a tiger on the beginner's page that has got a similar sort of thing and you could just do that. You really need perhaps an ivory base or a grey base and put some of the ochre in it and just rub it in and then you'd be able to lose that rather ruggedness at the bottom of the picture. Now you may be reluctant to do that and if you are - forget it, forget I said it. It's just something I'm pointing out to you.A couple of little other things that are not quite right the nose is slightly out there and I know you you say you want to put your own spin on things but you want to be very careful that you represent an animal's features correctly. And if you look at the reference picture and then you look at yours at the bottom of the nose especially right at the tip of the nose the pink part of the nose you can see it's slightly out. So you've got to be careful there. But otherwise I think as you say you've done your own thing and that's fine.There's another point you've got to also watch the eyes, now the eyes are slightly misshapen if you look at the two eyes you've got they're slightly misshapen refer to the reference picture you're looking at and you'll see that there are more uniform. Now you're asking me for feedback and I'm giving you it. It's very very difficult once you've got a picture that you've finished to actually make those adjustments.So what I would do is don't do anything about it now apart from the background I think that would that would certainly enhance the picture. But look at it as being something that you can take over to the next picture. But keep at it because it looks good and I'm sure that putting in all those small features in place and things I've mentioned you're going to make a great job of the next one.