WatchamaDRAWit

This is a drawing that I did from a prompt from a collection called "WatchamaDRAWit." My prompt was "Draw a tiger wearing sunglasses riding a skateboard." I drew a tiger riding a skateboard down a city street wearing jeans and sunglasses while filming with a selfie stick.

I started by drawing the city street in one point perspective. This was challenging because I wanted the point to be off center and because I had to incorporate the correct perspective into all the other aspects of the piece. I then outlined the tiger in graphite and proceeded to shade everything in colored pencil. I chose a realistic style for this piece because it seems that cartoon tigers are common and I wanted my depiction to be unique. I thought that a realistic tiger would create irony in the piece and this is accentuated by the casual riding style and clothing. I think that the coloration and texture of the tiger's fur look realistic because of the level of detail that I attained. For my composition I used one point perspective and the rule of thirds by creating a vanishing point in the top right corner while confining the subject to the left two thirds of the paper. I also used a high horizon line to expose the skateboard at ground level. My piece evolved in that I had a difficult time deciding which of the tiger's legs should be put forward on the skateboard and ended up erasing and changing them multiple times. Eventually I chose the left leg because it seemed to look the most natural with the way that I drew the torso.

In this piece I wanted to create irony through the contrast of the tiger in a nontraditional environment. To do this I made the tiger look as comfortable as possible riding the skateboard (wearing jeans and sunglasses, filming) so that the only thing out of place is the tiger itself. This piece relates to me and my life in that I enjoy adding additional detail such as accessories. For this reason, the tiger is not just wearing sunglasses riding a skateboard, it has a camera and jeans which are fun details that add to the tiger's character. I think that this piece could be stronger if I had burnished more to make the colors more vibrant and create a greater range of value. The piece appears a little flat because of the lack of strong color and would be better if the colors popped more.