Here is my entry this month so. much. crosshatch. so much.

Happy I finished this time (and with time to spare! woo!) It's done entirely in watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and pen for the eyes.

Here is my entry Done in watercolor, colored pencil and gouache.

Love me any excuse to paint in watercolors. Hey hey hey it's Albert (the Possum)!

Done! and with six days to spare *pats self on back *

side note: haven't checked this feed in a little while and oh my gosh such amazing work!

Not really related to kids books (except maybe the style is) but due to high demand I've started creating some pet/poodle portraits lol. Here is one I created that I quite like (it didn't scan well so I'm currently pressing the paper between two cutting boards with some heavy weights on top - if anyone knows of a good tip on how to flatten paper for scanning please share! I'm begging). I made another for a friend based off the poodle one but forgot to scan it before mailing it off. I have a picture of it though that I snapped on my phone. It was of a dog she fostered. I love animals so making these was very fun. (I'll add my first one too. I made it mostly just to test out a white charcoal pencil I bought tbh)

I've been working on more web design-y stuff this month so I've had less time for illustration but here are a few little things I've been working on.

I've been testing out illustrating digitally with watercolor brushes in procreate:

I've also been practicing digitally coloring ink images. This one I made for inktober but decided to try coloring it in digitally just for fun:

And then recently I started working on some spot illustrations for a restaurant. This one didn't make the final cut but I think he turned out pretty cute and I love being able to work in this line-art style.

dang this thread is super long already! Here are the two I've done so far but will probably take today off

Welp I didn't completely finish it but I spent too long on it not to post so here we go

Here are my entries. Made them a while ago but I still like them so why not Hopefully will have some new ones to enter next month too!

@lizardillo hey bandana buddy lol i love your color choices and the expressive poses!

@charlottesart this made me literally laugh out loud love it

So cute! I could def tell you're a pro right away lol. Love the expression and colors!

Love me any excuse to paint in watercolors. Hey hey hey it's Albert (the Possum)!

@baileyvidler That's a good question, I'd like to know the answer too. @LisaF could you clarify please?

Hi all,

I wanted to post this questions because I'm interested on how you all view or approach sales tax if you sell your work.

The reason I was thinking about this topic is because I have some down time and was considering offering pet portrait commissions to a group of people...But the more I think about it the more I think about invoices and taxes and headaches. And so then I think maybe I should just work on some personal work instead lol. But I also don't want to go on forever being intimidated by these tax realities.

For me personally I'm not math or accounting minded. I prefer simplicity which seems to be something that simply doesn't exist when it comes to filing taxes correctly. My mom is an accountant and after having a long conversation with her about nexus and destination/origin state taxes and then also county taxes I was so lost and a little concerned I wouldn't be able to realistically keep up with it. I mean if I sell something digitally for a few bucks how do I even find out where the purchaser is located to make sure I charge tax correctly - I guess etsy keeps track of that but what if you want to sell outside of etsy? And if someone purchases something do I need a program that calculates their tax before checkout or do I just factor it out of the overall profit once the sale's done (is that even a thing?). Do I keep a detailed spreadsheet or is there some useful software most people use? Do you hire an accountant or do it all yourself? How does one stay meticulously organized without going insane or spending ridiculous amounts of time on it all. Or maybe that headache is just part of the process?

If you sell online what's worked for you and do you have any tips or learning resource recommendations to help it all make sense? Do you recommend sites like etsy or setting up an independent shop on your own website? I used to like etsy but it has it's limitations when it comes to calculating taxes so I wonder if it's even worth using it versus just selling independently.

@Matthew-Oberdier Oh true! good point - thank you!!

I'm really excited about this lol I'm always looking for more illustration channels. woop woop! thanks for sharing your wisdom.

Hi everyone,

I find that I have a bad habit of being very unsatisfied with my work at times. I can't pinpoint if it is simply because I'm creating an image that I'm not passionate about or because the image is actually not very good. I'm creating this painting for a book cover for someone I've worked with multiple times. They always like what I produce but there are definitely times where I feel the work is not good enough to be on a book cover and I kind of feel bad about being paid for it by the end. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

I've been moving more towards digital art lately because I find the process smoother/easier/cheaper/quicker than traditional. But I had already made one cover for a client in watercolor so they wanted this next book to be in the same media/style.

Anyways, I created a sketch which I liked but now that I'm creating the final painting there is something I just don't like about it and I can't put my finger on it. This often happens with traditional paintings for me since they are so much harder to edit and change colors once they're on the paper. I'm not sure if it's just that I don't have as good of a handle on the media or if my color choices are off/not meshing as well as they did in my head. It makes me wonder if the traditional paintings that I create and end up liking are just a fluke. It shakes my confidence in my work for sure and I just am wondering at what stage of your careers did you face this challenge (or maybe you never faced this)? Do you have any constructive tips, feedback, or advice?

Constructive criticism for the painting itself is also welcome. I'm a little embarrassed to be sharing it at all but I figure this can only help me improve. I'm probably 90% finished with it.

Thank you all! This community is the best

dang this thread is super long already! Here are the two I've done so far but will probably take today off