Hi! I am a senior at the Ringling College of Art and Design. I love using watercolor. My main interests are in trade children’s book illustration, book covers, and fine art.
I think this is really good! Some suggestions would be to give the type more space considering the long vertical vines. Especially the one near the 'T' is making a tangent and is awkward. You could get rid of it. Also, check the spelling on Rudyard, you spelled it "Rudjard". His name will need to be bigger as well. The title is a good size, but even if this was printed out full size, it would need to be more significant.
@Potterkun I also tend to have finals that are less contrasted as I like. Try overcompensating the values, and there is also nothing wrong with making a few adjustments in Photoshop when you finish. I think the walking stick works fine as long as it still keeps with the story.
I've pointed out the arc tangent made by the hat and the trees, and a couple of other minor ones. The arc is the one that really flattens the space.
@Potterkun It's definitely an interesting balance, trying to listen to critique and stay true to what you like to do. Do you do value and color studies before the final illustration? Doing three to four developed studies of each will help solve those issues.
A good exercise for color is to steal the color palette of a successful piece by an artist you admire that has a similar mood as yours. That way you know that the color works, and sort of reverse engineer it.
Also keep in mind certain tangents that are flattening space.. The cuff of the mouse's pants makes a tangent with the bush, and in the second image, the top of the boy's hat lines up with the arc of the tree branches in the back.
@Potterkun Your work is cartoony, but ‘too cartoony’ depends on who you are asking and what you are going for. The publisher you spoke too said it was too cartoony for them. Before you show your work to another, research the artists that they usually publish and work with. You need to understand where your work fits in. Different companies want different things and different stories require different illustrators. You need more opinions than just one publisher, although I wonder what other critique they gave besides saying it is too cartoony.
The gesture of the character in the first piece is very upright. I can see that he is walking forward, but I think the line of action and gesture can be pushed, so he has more momentum. What are some specifics you want critique on or think you need help with?
@Alligatarz It’s only day 5! Changing the size could affect you but I’d think that’d be minimal unless it was a drastic size change. If you have the rules laid out for the challenge and are keeping variables consistent (such as spending the same time on each or an appropriate amount) you’ll see some progress when you are done.
It’s a three week challenge and you haven’t even finished the first one. That’s like going to the gym for five days and wondering why you haven’t gotten stronger. Not every piece will exceed the last, but you’ll be able to see an overall improvement if you keep at it and finish. Sometimes the thing is to do the work the whole way through.
@Sorcha Drawing from pictures in and of itself or using them for reference is not bad, but it becomes bad when you use it as a crutch. Drawing from life will cause you to improve drastically and faster than only drawing from pictures ever will. You're beholden to the photographs.
You'll find that if you do observational drawing then come back to drawing from photos that so much information is lost and so many decisions have been made by the camera on your behalf. With observational experience you can breathe more life into the images. As the artist you want to be able to make those decisions yourself.
Drawing from life forces you to think differently and really know what you are drawing and why you are drawing it. I use photos for reference all the time, but have done life drawing and can use both to make artistic decisions instead of just relying on my reference. Professionals do/did it all the time too (Rockwell, anyone?)
Consider also that when you are learning, it's not about making a pretty image. I've seen in my experience that artists who rely only on photos usually want to make something pretty more than they want to learn. Making stuff that doesn't look the best at first when learning is expected until you get a good foundation. If you want to improve the most that you can, I would say that observation is necessary.
I love learning about the tools artists choose to use! I agree a lot with Lee and Will about the quality of materials and how that can affect results. Once I started using better materials, such as cotton/heavier watercolor paper, it became easier to get the results that I wanted. I'm a bit of a supply enthusiast, especially when it comes to watercolor.
As far as limiting your palette, my main watercolor palette has 28 colors, and sometimes I feel like it's too few! I never use them all at once, but the pigments have such a range of different properties, and as Lee said, they can also mix totally differently. There are just some colors you can't mix. I love Permanent Brown (PBr25) and have never been able to mix it or replicate how it mixes with other colors. I had to add a magenta and turquoise because I couldn't mix the hue or vibrancy I wanted. Viewing other people's palettes has been really interesting to me as well. It's interesting to see what they view as essential when compared to the standard/basic palette that is recommended to students.
