@kimchizerbe Hi Erin - I think it is a wonderful tribute to your Grandfather and showcases your drawing and water color skills very nicely.
Where I think this begins to have issues, as you mention yourself, is in the layout/design of the three components we see here.
I hope you don't mind but I took this into Photoshop and made some adjustments and moved some things around to give you an idea of how this might all come together in a more cohesive way.
For starters you have these nice scrolling banners wrapping around the two animals but you have left them blank and then added in a third banner which I am not sure is necessary. And it further throws off the balance of your piece. So I worked all three of these main elements into each other. Granted if you were drawing this from scratch you would need to make further adjustments but hopefully this gives you some ideas.
Next I scaled down the size of the rooster a little bit, he was looking too large in comparison with the pig and I think he is more balanced out now.
I also got rid of the tail of his banner from behind his head and just a mirror of the one from the pig, to once again bring in that symmetry between them. If you were to do a fresh drawing, it does not have to be the exact same - but I do think keeping it similar in size/shape is appealing.
You will also see I copied bits and pieces of the flowers/plants to fill in areas here and there.
And of course you will notice I swapped the position of the rooster and the pig. I think them facing out, but their eyes clearing staring back at us is so much more powerful looking.
Anyway - I hope you find some of this helpful and like I said your drawing/watercolor skills are really beautiful here!
