Eye of the Tiger Rice Painting

Creating the "eye of the tiger" helped me through a difficult situation. It became the theme song running through my mind as I glued each individual piece of rice. It required the perfect blend of precision and creative freedom. I hope it brings you strength and resilience as well.

6x6 inch wooden board

Pencil

Uncooked white rice:

Long grain (approx. 1/2 cup)

Sushi rice (approx. 2 tablespoons)

Acrylic paint (see instructions below for more details)

White

Brown

Shades of orange

Ziploc bags

Clear school glue

Optional –

Mini Display Stand or Shadow Box

Small containers

Water-based gloss or clear sealant

This piece uses two different types of rice. Long grain rice has a directional shape that’s ideal for mimicking fur. Sushi rice offers a rounded, compact shape, making it perfect for fine details such as the eye.

Choosing the right paint is essential and this step took some experimenting.

I tested a few types, ranking them based on:

Drying Time – ideally under five minutes

Clumping – minimal sticking or rice clumps. Some clumping is normal, but some of the paints acted like glue and it was hard to separate the pieces.

Durability – rice should not become brittle or break after drying

The results:

Washable paint = didn’t dry fast enough. Some of the paint was still wet an hour later.

Generic acrylic paint = clumped the rice together like glue.

Martha Stewart/Apple and Barrell paints = just right!

While this piece was hand-drawn, inspiration was taken from stained glass patterns, which are good for rice mosaics because of their strong outlines and bold color blocks.

I’ve also included a downloadable outline I created that you can use to trace directly onto your wood. If you use the pdf outline, please note that the lines in blue are for the outline of the eye. The black areas are where the stripes are placed.

Tigers may be orange, but their fur isn’t a flat, uniform color. There are dozens of orange tones available at any craft store—from golden honey to deep burnt sienna—and you can create even more by mixing them. Don’t be afraid to layer light and dark oranges, browns, and creams to bring realism and movement to your image. The subtle variations between rice grains will actually help your final piece feel more organic.

These are the colors that I used:

Martha Stewart:

Metallic Copper

Pearl White

Apple Barrel: (link for paints)

Sweet Potato

Mango

Neon Yellow

Chocolate Bar

Pumpkin Orange

Jack-o-Lantern

Orange

Tropic Orange

You don't need to stick to this color list. Be bold and blend the colors together and see what comes up. As long as it's within the shade of orange, you're good to go.

You want to have a base color for the board so that any spaces between the pieces of rice wont be so noticeable.

Paint the board with a base color. A neutral tone such as tan or light orange works well. Once it dries, draw or trace your chosen design onto the board with a pencil.

Add some rice to a Ziploc bag and put a small amount of paint inside. Start small - you can always add more paint later on. Close the bag securely and then shake it until all of the rice is covered. The bag will also be covered in paint, this is normal.

Leave the bag open to let the paint dry.

Repeat this process for each color you want to use.

Once the rice is dry to the touch, transfer it to a clean bag or small container.

Start by putting glue on the board and carefully adding each piece of rice. A dot of glue on the tip of the skewer helps the rice stick to it, making placement much easier. I recommend working slowly and in small sections to ensure that the glue doesn’t dry before you finish placing the rice.

Patience pays off here!

Using long rice that is colored dark brown, glue down the outline of the eye.

For this part, use sushi rice painted in the same dark brown and glue it down in a slightly layered, irregular pattern to create dimension.

Continue using sushi rice in various shades of orange, amber, and gold to create the iris. Arrange it symmetrically, but vary the tones slightly to keep it natural-looking. (Note: I went a little bit out of order in the pictures... I put some fur down before the iris. It doesn't impact the actual project, just doesn't let the instructable flow as well as it could).

One of the benefits of using clear school glue is its slower drying time. If you realize that you made a mistake, you can take off those pieces and try again! You might notice that I took off the two little stripes on top of the eye. It just wasn't looking right. The beauty of slow drying glue.

Start the fur by laying your rice flat and evenly. As you work outward, begin to layer the rice slightly over the previous row and angle the grains in the direction the fur would naturally grow. A tiger usually has white fur around his eye and then a border of dark brown stripes before shifting into orange.

To achieve a realistic effect, shift the colors subtly as you go. Don’t commit to one shade per row—mix light and dark tones within each line to avoid a striped or artificial look. Think about how real fur changes under light and try to capture that movement with color

The secret? Don’t make it uniform. Tigers aren’t paint-by-numbers.

Since tiger fur is naturally varied, feel free to blend and overlap shades. Don’t worry about being exact—variation adds realism.

While it’s good to follow your outline, don’t be afraid to get creative with colors and shapes. It's helpful to take a step back once in a while to see if there are sections that need adjusting. You're going to be close up in the project, putting down each piece of rice individually so sometimes it's hard to spot an issue until you see it from a distance.

As you work your way outwards from the eye, you will begin to add the stripes. Each stripe is like a brushstroke - tapering at each point with a wide base. The stripes often fan out from the eye and on top of the nose. These stripes add personality to your tiger.

Your tiger should be starting to look like a tiger by now! Just keep going, piece by piece, layer by layer.

Let your instincts guide you as you move from dark areas to lighter ones, and then back again to create balance and contrast. The nose usually only has stripes on the bridge and sides.

Once your piece is fully dry, brush on a final thin layer of clear school glue or a water-based gloss. This will give your piece a finished look and help secure all of the rice in place. The gloss will also add a subtle shine that enhances the texture and makes the colors pop.

Now that your tiger eye is complete, it’s time to show it off. You can place it on a mini easel, mount it in a shallow shadow box, or simply hang it on the wall.

Well, this became an addictive project! Here are some more eye of the tiger rice paintings that I made. The smaller ones are made on 4x4 boards.