Tiger Eye!

For several weeks our young students had been asking to paint a Tiger Eye, based on two acrylic paintings of tigers displayed in our studio. 


The challenge for me was to create a simplified version of the Tiger Eye that even the youngest students could successfully complete using thier own color choices and personal style; all within a class period time frame of 1-1/2 hours.


I decided to print the basic shapes on a 11" x 15" piece of heavy white paper for each child, to avoid the stress of trying to draw the image themselves. The focus of the project was instead on color selection and design, paint mixing and blending, creating details, and overall satisfactory completion of the project. 

Using cake temperas, they first filled in some of the black stripes to make better sense of the overall patterns in the image. 

Then, while the stripes dried, they decided what type of tiger they were going to paint: 


a realistic Indian or white tiger, or maybe a rainbow, or an avatar tiger? 






They painted the eye colors and details first, then filled in the rest of the tiger's face. 

If needed, they then went back and redefined/repainted some of the stripes and other details. Some also added glitter to complete their tigers with style!

Finally, their tiger's whiskers were added with a metallic Sharpie.

Aren't they awesome?