@Joy-Heyer said:

It isn't just the actual measurement of each, it is their visual weight. Visually the cowboy and the sign feel the same weight to me. Enlarging the font of the title and changing it's background color may change the visual weight. Also making the cowboy a bit smaller would help in multiple ways: it would move him away from the edge, give the author and illustrator text more room, and create size variance but still keep him in front of the sign.

I get what you are saying now--I'll play around with it!

The text needs to stand out more in my opinion. The value of the text is very similar to the background.

Ace

Great work look forward to see more.

Thank you for the good suggestions, I will revise and repost.. thanks all.

yeah on most of the stuff I see from him (and from a lot of artists) there is a secondary light source. I played around with that but couldn't get anything that I liked to work.

Good catch though!

Thank you for all the great feedback everyone!

@Leontine - I had played around with other colors for the jacket, yellow, green, but wanted the crocodile to maintain the strongest colors and stand apart from the boy rather than matching him. As to the rain, I was keeping it simple...and I didn't have a lot of time to spend on this when I did it 🙂 Rain would be cool and I may add it later, as well as a background. He was supposed to be walking down a street in NYC, brownstones behind him, people gawking. And I may be putting a cat's tail hanging out of his mouth! Thank you for the great suggestions.

@Lee Holland @Naroth Kean @ Nancy Gormezano - Thanks!

@Pixby - A shine on the croc's eye would be a nice finishing touch, great suggestion!

Welcome and great style!

Thank you everyone! Merry Christmas!!!

That was test illustration for children book. Unfortunately I didn't get this job. Will get another)

naom1.jpg

@JamiB great style, something about her nose and lips seems to be off, like one is not aligned right. Can I see your reference?

Sorry forgot to add you could also keep the same frame ratio but go slightly left or right so that your subject isn't dead center. In your case I like that one tree I cut off on the left, so I would go closer to his backside edge on the right, maybe showing only 1 tree there, instead of the 2, almost 3 I have now.

I like the new hula-hooping one best, and the new Mercury one too! You should give yourself a break - it's really difficult to show gesture well when you only have a sphere and arms to work with! This is a difficult task IMO 🙂 And you're doing a great job.

Yes yes I totally feel like a style commitment-phobe! Every time I watch a new class I see a new way of working and think I must try this! And it's great and you learn stuff...but then I wonder well do I have to choose? If so, will it come naturally? I hope so. There's just so much fun stuff to choose from.

@Rob-Smith No problem :). It was fun to try something I wouldn't have done on my own... and then doing it in a different style :). Glad the challenge was posted. Thanks!

Thank you guys for the input! it's a story about friendship between a stray puppy and an sea otter. These images are supposed to be the introduction of the story where the small town was described and the stray puppy lived there.

@Stephanie-Hider Thank you!
@mattramsey Thank you yes he supposed to be running on the line and I think you got a very good idea of showing him on the coast line as well for the first pic, but he might be a bit too small to be notice.
@Joy-Heyer That is a very good point! yes they are connected. Thanks for pointing that out.
@Bobby Aquitania Thank you! yes I'm going to try to make those tree a bit smaller, maybe the puppy should be smaller as well. I totally forgot to tell people that it's a two page spread.
@smoke 🙂 thankies
@carlossketches Thank you! they are introduction for a children's book story i'm working on. I totally agree with you that the circle shape on the dog actually bring more focus on the page. I'll see if i can play around with different composition on the full spread one.

@gimmehummus great technique!! I'll use this in the future

@Dulcie Thank you and yes the viewer is looking out of the igloo.

@Rob-Smith You're always impressing me! This is so stunning in these colors. You are really effective in your art and your style!

@Dulcie @Joy-Heyer Thank you both for the kind comments...and thank you @Dulcie for noticing the lack of "mud". I really have been trying to keep the colors fresh but subtle. Believe me, I have a stack of crappy, muddy paintings in the corner my of studio.

We all have that corner of "mud" on our palette that we save. Its in this painting that shows as some of the gray tones.

I love the way you do snow! Great piece!

Thanks for your feedback, @Dulcie. 😊 In fact the finger is meant to point to the Edelweiss flower. Maybe I have to redo it if it is misleading. I know he cannot see the flower yet. It is more like ... Maybe behind the next rock I'll find something.