Tiger Drawing

Doing a tiger drawing takes a lot of patience.

The stripes on tiger drawings need a fair bit of time and discipline. I thought drawings of tigers was a tricky little assignment!

Here is a tiger outline for you to practice with.

See how you go copying this outline for a start.

I think my main problem is the eyes. Seeing as though I haven't quite conquered portrait drawing yet, this little flaw seems to come through in my animal drawings, too.

However, I don't let this stop me! Each time I do a drawing, I can see some improvement from the last one, and I feel terrific.

I get encouraged by this and I am hoping the same happens for you.

What You Need To Know About Tigers

To help you along with understanding tigers, I am going to include the usual bit of information about your drawing subject.

You'll be surprised how this knowledge comes into play as you draw them.

Tigers are the largest of all cats.

They are very muscular, they're built for power and not speed.

They have short, muscular legs and the body is long and narrow.

By long, I mean 9 feet or 2.7 meters. Wow! The female tiger, a tigress, is about one foot shorter in length.

The stripes on the tiger's coat makes for a good camouflage in their habitat.

You will find tigers in south east Asia and they live in grasslands, swamps, forest or jungle.

The stripes make it difficult to see the tiger as he moves through the grass.

We all know the stripes are black but the coat color varies from a brownish-yellow to an orange-red.

The stripes are not uniform, they vary in length, width and spacing.

There is some white hair on the throat, belly and inside the legs.

The hair around the head is a bit longer than the coat.

A tiger's footprint is called a pugmark.

With this drawing, I did the outline of the footprint with a mechanical pencil.

Then, I colored the paw pads with an 8B pencil and ran a H pencil over the whole drawing for the background.

I also shaded the tiger drawing above with a H pencil.

A "H" pencil is very hard and can ruin your paper, so use it with care. The lead is very light grey.

Degree Of Difficulty

I couldn't resist drawing a tiger cub, he looks so cute don't you think?

I wouldn't recommend doing tiger drawings if you are just starting out.

I was going to scrap all of these drawings and start again but my family urged me to share them with you. So needless to say you are seeing my very first attempts.

I think these drawings of tigers taught me a lot. I am gradually improving with drawing eyes and I am learning to observe more.

I wonder how you will do? You'll never, ever know if you don't have a go!

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