12 by 16 inches
Acrylic on canvasboard
Original for sale!

There was another painting that was supposed to bear this title. One that, as my watchers might know, I've been struggling with for weeks, trying to get it right. It is now, after four backgrounds and two different light sources, done. But I decided that it just doesn't fit with what I want the series to be. There's nothing technically wrong with it, it just isn't right.

So a few days ago I sat down and went through my reference again. I did compositional thumbnails of the next four paintings in the series, and I pretty much finished this one in one frenzied night of painting. I don't get to do that very often and it was awesome; by the end of the night I could hardly see straight.

Anyway, this is Rengat. He is a male sumatan tiger at the Toronto Zoo. Aside from depicting a sumatran tiger, I wanted this particular painting to be a portrait of him. He has a wonderful wild, rugged look to him, which I think I've managed to capture.

This painting is quite a departure from my usual style, and really like it. The brush in the foreground was painted negatively, just moving a clean brush through wet paint to suggest grass. The verticals by his head showed up in the early wash and I decided to work them into the final composition. For a little while there was a paw print in the background from where my cat jumped on the wet canvas, but I accidentally painted it over.