Watercolour RedditGetsDrawn pieces

After experimenting with coloured I decided to go back to trying to improve my watercolour technique. I enjoyed the convenience of pencils but I realised I am nowhere near the stage of being able to get nice results and I wasn't sure of the direction it was going in. If I'm honest I don't think I've ever seen a coloured pencil piece that I actually like.

I also want to improve my ability to produce likenesses so I've gone back and done more reddit gets drawn pieces. I am still nowhere near where I want to be, both in watercolour technique or draftsmanship but I do feel like I am making progress.

This is a piece from a user's wedding album. I think it came out well, though I messed up the bride's face. Sadly it was the last bit I did so there was no way I was going to restart. This is what makes watercolour so brutal - there is no way to fix or recover from mistakes, you just have to go with it.

This pieces is actually coloured pens, not watercolour. I really like it though.It's fun, bright and I think it captures the couple.

A picture of someone's wife and dog. I think elements came out well but it's too obvious that I ran out of time/interest towards the end. I often get like this - I really didn't want to do the whole background but I wasn't sure what else to do instead. It has made me want to do more animals though.

Some old Reddit art

I haven't posted for ages, I just lost the energy and all the stuff I was producing seemed terrible. I'd like to start up again so this post is just a few of my favourite pieces from the oh, six months since I last blogged.

Gene Wilder (and Richard Pryor)
I'm still terribly with likenesses and my watercolour techniques is poor but I still like this.

A Western fence lizard for Daily sketch

The Reddit Snoo
One of my favourite pieces from last year. Most of it actually looks like I meant it that way

A rgd drawing
A drawing from a couple of weeks ago. It actually looks vaguely like the person.

Another rgd drawing
Another recent rgd piece. I've been trying out coloured pencils again, largely for the convenience. I still haven't worked out how to do skin tones correctly but I do like elements of this and it looks like the picture.

A Ulysses butterfly
Just a cute pixel butterfly.

More Reddit prodded art

I've been too busy to do much drawing or painting recently, putting most of my time into projects that could be thought of as being 'work'. I did have time to do a few pieces. All three pieces here were done with Joshua next to me, him frantically stabbing my watercolours with the brushes and complaining that he wanted to use the colours I had mixed up instead of the dirty smudges he was creating. My poor brushes.

Daily sketch 363 - Swans

I am actually very happy with this! I really think it came out well,  though I should have added more contrast in the water.

Daily sketch 367 - Neptune

I like this one too, though Neptune's arm is definitely a bit weird. Unlike so much of my stuff it looks like I mostly intended it to look this way!

Reddit gets drawn - sir_megatron

I am not so sure about this one. It's a bit of a mess, like I couldn't decide whether to do a cartoon picture or try for something more realistic. Which is of course exactly what happened.

Daily sketches + Reddit gets drawns

We went away for the weekend and took the kids to Centre Parcs. They had great fun and I got a bit of time in the evenings to do some drawing + painting. I did 2 daily sketches and 2 rgds.

Daily sketch 328 - Pizza
Our elder hd begged for pizza then refused to eat it when it came so we took it back with us and I did this watercolour from (still) life. I really like it, though it suffers from my usual washed out thing.

Daily sketch 331 - Bob's Burgers

This was supposed to be something in the style of or about the cartton show Bob's Burgers. I've never watched the show so I think my picture came out more 'generic cartoony' than anything else. I'd like to say it was a decision to do it in ball point pen but really I had one to hand and couldn't be bothered to get up. It's a picture of Theo Walcott eating his own foot while Alexi Sanchez phones his agent and Mezut Ozil regrets his life choices.

Reddit gets drawn - Bitterljuvast

I tried for a watercolour, but after I messed up the initial skin colour I decided to just go with it and make it a bit creepy. I quite like it, though as always it's too mono-toned.

Reddit gets drawn - Innersoulkitten

A marker comic style picture of some girl. I like this and did intend to colour it, but it got late and I went to bed.

Reddit gets drawn - BuffHagen + Daily sketch 309 - Southpark

I am really enjoying getting back into silly watercolour cartoons. I did a Reddit gets drawn picture of BuffHagen's dad and nephew. I really like the overall feel, though the nephew looks like some dwarf or something. I'd like to blame the size constraint making his features hard to draw but I do find myself having trouble drawing children.

I also did a daily sketch, the subject of which was Southpark. I decided to try for a half way realistic monochrome Reservoir Dogs pastiche, but when I had pencilled it it became clear to me it wouldn't work so I just did a straightforward watercolour. I kind of like it but I still have massive shortcomings when using watercolour, not helped by the paper being to thin to properly take it. Maybe if I had spent another hour on it I could have improved on it but I am not sure.

Reddit gets drawn - Thurgebroketoe & Donavarion

Another two rgd pictures.

Thurgebroketoe was from r/redditgetsdrawnbadly, so I didn't feel the need to go all out for a likeness. I intended to squash his features into the middle of his face but instead it turned into a chinny superhero picture. If I had intended it to look like this I would be really happy as it's quite a nice drawing. I just wish I could have more control on how my art ends out.

Donavarion posted a moody and cool black and white photo. I thought I would try to do a colour version, and while I think my little watercolour is nice it looks nothing like him. I could try to pretend it's a result of using a tiny drawing pad but if I'm honest it wouldn't have been better if I done it bigger. Still, practise, right?

RGD - Hugz-are-fun + Alistairs

I did two Reddit portraits.
The first was a small watercolour sketch of Hugz-are-fun, which I think came out nicely, though I could probably have been more decisive with the colouring. To be honest I should have just done a larger image, I was planning on trying to do something a lot more simplified and stylised but could pull it off and found it was too small to add more detail.

The second wasn't actually from r/redditgetsdrawn. It was from a similar sub r/redditgetsdrawnbadly. It has the same idea (you post your picture, people draw or paint them) as r/redditgetsdrawn except the quality is more uneven and there are no expectations. There are still people who are amazing doing stuff in r/redditgetsdrawnbadly, but in r/redditgetsdrawn, everyone is amazing. Except me when I post, or at least that's how I feel. It means I don't feel quite so insecure which is nice, and I am hoping it will make it easier for me to experiment instead of just producing bad attempts at likenesses.
I drew Alistairs, and I didn't have much time so I just did a quick pencil sketch without trying too hard. It came out ok, though it doesn't look like her and I didn't abstract it at all. Still if it were r/redditgetsdrawn I am not sure I would have had the courage to post it but I had not problem here and I actually got replies to my post saying how good it is.

Reddit daily sketch 251 (Gesture drawing) and 258 (Wedding cakes) + Reddit gets drawn - zerolinks2014

I've been trying (and failing) to get stuff done on my game so I haven't had time to do very much artwork recently. I did manage to do two daily sketches and a rgd.

Daily sketch 251 was gesture drawing. This is supposed to mean quick, 30 second drawings which try to capture the flow of the subject with flowing gestures. I used this site which lets you customize the source images and time. I enjoyed it and it's definitely something I intend to try to do more whenever I have free time. Whether I can do this or wasting time on Reddit/my phone will win I'm not sure.

Daily sketch 258 was wedding cakes. I intended to either do one of those intricate pen drawings or do something I could colour in, but I lost interest towards the end of the main outline when it became clear how boring my picture was, so I just finished off the inking and left it at that.

I then did a drawing for Reddit gets drawn of user zerolinks2014 and I like it as a picture but it looks nothing like him, sadly. I really need to practise on getting likenesses, because at the moments it's just hit and miss. I think I also need a better idea of what I'm trying to do - a realistic picture or a cartoony caricature. At the moment I'm getting neither one nor the other and I'm ending with lots of disappointing results.

Reddit gets drawn - MjrMuffCabbage

Another Krita piece for Reddit gets drawn. Not as successful as my last one - it's more apparent that I'm trying for a painterly style and failing. I think I will try more abstracting in the future.

New graphics tablet! Reddit gets drawn - Flatishsassy

I was lucky enough to be given a graphics tablet for Christmas by my brother. I haven't really had that much time to play with it but so far it's amazing and I feel it could be giving my art a big kickstart.

I think my two major issues with painting, even back in my uni days were a lack of technique and a crippling fear of making mistakes that could ruin a half decent piece. This meant I found it very difficult to make myself take risk with strong colours and tone and frequently came out with bland, washed out works. Being able to try something then if it doesn't work undo and try something else is amazingly liberating and the ability to split things apart and work on different layers also makes thing much easier. It really gives me hope that if I persevere I'll be able to get myself up to a fairly decent standard, given a bit of time.

I downloaded and have been using Krita, an open source free photoshop clone and so far I'm finding it to be great. It's all a bit different form photoshop, particularly the shortcuts and keyboard commands, and there is definitely a learning curve, but it's still very good. And free!

This is the second nearly complete piece I've done using the tablet. It's a piece for the Reddit 'Reddit gets drawn' subreddit based on this photo of Reddit user Flattishsassy. While not overjoyed by the result it's definitely progress and does gives me some ideas of what direction I want to go in. Also practise is always good.