Year of the Tiger

I was inspired to paint this before the year of the tiger, actually. The original image that inspired this painting is in the National Geographic book, one of many beautiful natural scenes from across the world. I enjoyed capturing the ferocity of movement and the speckles of water as they spray across the area. This was my first successfully-completed acrylic painting. It was painted in the the summer time as I played happy music in Seattle on a deck outdoors.

Part of the inspiration for painting this was my Chinese grandfather’s artwork which often featured tigers, elephants, and other animals that once roamed East Asia. Growing up, he taught me through first drawing the outlines of animals, and then following those outlines, building shapes. Somehow, I still associate tigers with those days of drawing long ago.