She's coming along - and the input from this feed has been invaluable thus far.

Next I'll do a color comp, and then slowly wade into the actual painting.
Anyone else hate using a light box to sketch an image onto your final project paper?

Working on a theme of "Beasts of Burden" - I ran to watercolor with this one, but I think from here on out I want to rely on just ink.
So cool to see everyone's work on this!

What a great topic!
You are totally right - there are so many great artists online trying to make it right now - my instagram is littered with people who are just killing it. And then you have people like Frank Frazetta who was encouraged as a child to paint and draw - so by 20 he already had 10,000 drawings done and mastered.
But listening to Will Terry and Lee White have been really helpful to me (sorry Jake Parker :p) on this specific note, because they are guys who came to the game late and threw themselves in and just did the work.
Maybe it's good for mental health to just know in the back of your head that if it doesn't pull through it's ok to just be those crazy aunts who wear silly hats and paint pretty things.
But there are so many ways to make money at this game, and so many people that don't know how to make objects but want to own them. I think there's a piece of pie for all of us - we just gotta find ourselves and our people. And, you know, do the work part.

This guy near enough killed me!
I'm working on this thing where I don't dog my own work - I fought this guy tooth and nail.
But I do think there were a lot of successes, and the parts I don't like have taught me just as many lessons. I ended up playing around with it at the end and wanted to see what crosshatching in gouache would look like as an approach.
Done in watercolor and gouache.
It's a hard medium to go back and make corrections, but if you have feedback I would love to hear it and digest as I move forward!

Thank you again for all the pointers you've shared with me thus far!

Well art friends! I inked it - thank you for helping me to see the things I could not.
I didn't adjust the main fire as far @burvantill suggested because I thought it pulled the main S curve too far out of balance, but I adjusted the little fire spout on the left to give it more of a wild flame kind of feel. I hope this choice was a good choice, and not a byproduct of being a stubborn artist refusing to grow. :-p I guess we'll see in a year when I look back on this piece.
There is a bit of a tangent now with the bottom two mammoths, and one spot that nags at me a bit, which I can address in a final final.
But I wanted to share where I am.
Thank you thank you!
The Original Collab Thread is here if you're inclined.

Hi Sarah! Welcome! I just started getting active here too, so we're classmates - how exciting! Although I haven't made the giant leap of asking for a crit yet - so kudos to you! I'm really enjoying your story telling and how you push some of the viewers perspectives to make more dynamic compositions.
The thing that popped out at me is how soft your paintings are - I work in watercolor too and for me it's really scary to add that second layer of darker colors, but I think your pieces could really pop if you played a little more with darker colors, some browns, and more saturated colors. The beauty of watercolor is you can still have soft images with richer color.
Also mixing browns in watercolor is so rewarding! I love to throw a rich blue and a rich orange together, and sometimes the pigments separate from each other which gives so much life to the neutrals in an image.
Really looking forward to seeing more of your stories

Hey!
This is the start of my music piece - I doubt it will be done in time, but I'm excited about the piece in general and I was hoping to get some input from you amazing people! The idea is of a lion that sings to the moon and stirs his neighbors. I'm still trying to nail down composition and perspective and have started to play with value comps. (I'm 100% struggling with the rock formation, but I can't figure out what's going wrong.)
I definitely value any feedback you have!

@TessaW ah man - those are great! It really is amazing how the moods change with each drawing.

I'm messing around with color and light right now, and trying to get loose with paint - but that last bit isn't working out for me (having a hard time breaking the control).

I was going to concentrate on figures/faces/hands these next couple weeks and David's head and hands class just opened up. Anyone do a class yet? $450 is a bit much for me right now, but I am so tempted to just bite the bullet. I'd love to hear people's experiences.

Hello all,
I'm taking a community water color class, and last week we were painting reflections. I made this guy for it, but I feel like it is too top heavy.
I am playing around with doing a foreground element to help balance it out, using acetate ontop of the painting to try and figure out the shapes before I commit.
I'm really looking to find the balance in the image and also move your eye to the central feeding bird. Are the silhouette shapes working?
I'm very open to and appreciative of any and all feedback.
Thank you

I just wanted to give a quick update and thank everyone for chiming in. For some reason foregrounds give me a straight up mental block and I just can't wrap my mind around them when it's time to doooo it.
But I appreciate the feedback, the kind words and the encouragement.
I did the whole scene just to see what it could look like - but I do agree with the cropping at the end. I tried to do subtle value changes and to express light, but it all quickly got away from me.
Mahalo.

Lee White! You’re killing me! Graphic Designers legit have passion! Cracking me up

@Chip-Valecek
Wow!!
Wow Chip!!! This second draft has so much energy to it. I also like how you’ve rounded out the witch/ghost’s face - it pulls the illustration more into a commercial space, while still touching on grunge/horror. I’m really responding to your proportions with this piece- I think you’re getting some really dynamic shapes with your characters that also feel sophisticated.
The background falls to the back enough to not fight for attention, and the back and forth between the witch and the birds are perfect - I also appreciate how her hair and ghost wisps frame the most important part of the scene.

If you’re still playing with value, maybe make the ghosts hair and the Birds and the main grave stone darker - the whole image is feeling grey. But if you’ve already flushed it out, it’s a night scene(?) and I think you could get away with it.

Lastly, I didn’t really know the prompt a week ago, but I think I might have led you astray. The guys seem to be huge sticklers about following the prompt to a T when they judge. “She overheard them talking about her.”
I don’t know if this piece really tells that story anymore. But I think the story that you’re telling here is very cohesive and hilarious and well illustrated and fits in beautifully with your body of work. I feel like the birds pooping could potentially nudge you out of the running, BUT would be killer in your portfolio! So I’m curious to see what you do and to see this puppy in color!

Hey Chip!
I’m Kaitlin - very very occasional SVS poster, long time lurker and learner, and a fan of yours!
I agree with Lisa - the birds do look like they’re just hanging out, talking story. Maybe have them desecrate the tombstone - something wonderfully Chip. Maybe pooping on it?
I love the scary dead lady - perhaps you can tilt her head down so that she’s looking straight at the birds and coming down to dive at them. Even though she’s looking down at them there’s just a slight disconnect as her face is looking at us straight on.

Excited to see this piece come together!

Krampus approved.

I would highly suggest listening to 1 Fantastic Week! Their last episode especially - they talk about how to drive up followers and how those followers can turn into sales - but most importantly how it’s a platform to tell your story and get people to fall in love with you.
I love SVS because they teach you the methods of making, and I love 1 Fanastic Week because they teach you how to turn that skill into $$$, from experience.
All that to say that I think Instagram can be used to high success - depending on your involvement with it, and more so if you look at it as a job.

I totally agree with @juliekitzes - the swans and wings were lovely and set up a beautiful design - I also agree with her statement that white wings would work perfectly in the back - the two characters have such dark skin that they really need a lighter background to stand out from. Potentially you might also want to lower the value of their clothes slightly - that will help the flesh of the characters pop out better and potentially help give a good backdrop for the black swans.
I think their embrace is sweet - but maybe this is a personal reading on my end. It reads as an enduring, deep bond - and if you were to add in the swans, their entanglement would highlight the depth of their love without having your characters all up in each others business.
I am in love with this painting and can not wait to see it come together! Seriously. I imagine you can’t wait as well!

@DLArmantrout hilarious!

@burvantill
Don’t have one yet :p but when I do I’ll reach out to you

Actually this video helped me figure it out - better to just give you the source. About half way through she goes into how to select a color and then manipulate it. It’s saved me a lot of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NosHNaZwzg&feature=share

@hannahmccaffery
Thank you for that insight - I probably would have followed too many people :-p but now I will more carefully “curate” my feed.
@lmrush Incredible! It’s actually stories like yours that makes me want to jump on the twitter game - It sounds like it can be an amazing tool.

@Aleksey Thank you for that giant cheat! I do love instagram and all the tags you can use, but my engagement isn’t that high yet, so my work doesn’t pop up on the top 9 for tags with 50,000+. Do you listen to One Fantastic Week? Those guys talk a lot about finding a community of people that will follow your work, because you’re the artists who makes work about the things they love, and maybe twitter is a good place to find those communities.