With gouache, you don't need expensive art tools, but you do need the correct kind of paper. It looks great on watercolor paper, mixed media paper, and heavy drawing paper.
At the very least, you should search for sheets that do not buckle when you are painting. If you wonder which product is the best paper for gouache, the answer depends on your preference.

I just wanted to say hang in there, I can relate somewhat, and don't be hard on yourself. I have been teaching in a public school throughout this madness, and also trying to get inspired. It is so hard and painful to feel uninspired, even when there isn't the trauma of a massive pandemic that is still with us. I hesitated to subscribe to the svs courses because I felt that I didn't have the bandwidth to make it worthwhile, like to create anything, let alone complete the assignments. I don't watch shows but it looks like wolfwalker could serve as an inspiration to you. At the same time it doesn't have to motivate, it can just be a place to rest, escape the world and just soak up a well-crafted work to fill your well, so to speak.

In case you are curious, in the end I did subscribe to svs starting in august and even though I haven't been able to complete the courses as I suspected, I discovered that even just having the studio jump sessions playing on the side while I revise old work has been surprisingly productive. I don't have anything worth sharing, yet, but I do feel that I am making progress on improving my work, and reviewing some of the techniques. It's like what you are saying, the jump sessions relate back to the lessons. The sessions are also just 1-1.5 hours long so it helps me to carve out a little time for drawing. Every little bit does help.

Take care!

@isabel-reyes-feeney you're welcome.

Sounds like what @Lee-White does might be helpful for you: when you're working on an illustration, look at it as a study so it takes the pressure off and that might give you the freedom to let go of the rules and experiment...

@helen Thank you, Helen!

FB is tricky. I searched FB groups that are related to our town, the only few FB pages there are for our township, some were last updated a year ago ...

Maybe I can try FB pages of nearby towns, then I'll have to post in their town's parent group, 🤨

I'm sure lots of people are interested in writing/illustrating, but I would really love to find some friends who are serious about them, and have writing/illustrating as their career, not just a hobby.

I wouldn't worry too much. I get some new followers every once in a while that might either be spam or an influencer looking for that "follow you so you'll follow me, then I'll unfollow you" crap. It makes me sad that it's not a genuine follower, but I try to put it our of my mind and know that they eventually weed themselves out. Try not to be so concerned about how quickly you're building followers...I've been at this a good 2-3 years and still have under 200 followers. It's slow growth, so I focus more on being proud of the content that I put out there.

@davidhohn Thank you, David. Looking into these factors, I addressed my concerns to the agent, hoping it works out.

it's pretty interesting to see how varied our styles are even when everyone is using black and white only 😃

I came across this and thought I’d share here 🙂 it’s another funny yet effective analogy to use when someone offers to pay you with exposure instead of money.
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That’s awesome! Congratulations!

@K-Flagg oh that's so good to hear! Glad you got it figured out! 🙂

Funny enough, I got that exact deal in the mail a couple days ago haha. It's been great so far! I'm sure somebody on the hunt will really appreciate this!

@jenithornhill I like the light sky and contrast with the dragon float in the second one up. I still think there's too much confusion in the camper itself, though, and unifying the values more might help with that. You've did that more in the last one, but still, set them off even more against the sky. That way the camper will read as one big silhouette, despite all the details. It may go against your lovely 1950s camper design, but I wonder for example what it would look like if you made all the white part a color of similar value to the bottom, blue green part?

I do like the frog bigger, but now that his head is in the middle of the camper confusion, the silhouette is not as clear. Having him so big also changes the focus from "a crazy family of flamingoes have a pet frog" to "this frog lives with a crazy family of flamingoes." Just make sure that's the story you want. I also just now realized that he's not out front, but that they are dragging him from behind! I wonder what happened? Did he just make a big jump and end up falling off, or was he after something?

I also just wanted to add that your drawing here is great! I love the delicacy of the line, especially in the rending and shading on all the camper items. You must have had fun designing all this and it's really worth making it read at its best!

@hakepe you're welcome! I've had to do it a few times as well as I further refine what I really like doing.

And thank you for your kind words about my portfolio! I am for sure in the cute category of illustration 😆

@donnamakesart Great analogy especially because the fun part is throwing the ideas all over the place and the editing (the adult part) is hard work.

@JosephStallone That review looks perfect though. Thanks for sharing.

I just found a related post to your query that you can check here: https://printerdeets.com/best-printer-for-giclee-prints/

I am using Canon IP8720 Wireless Printer and it works perfectly.

Hey y'all ~ Shani here!

Hope y'alls inktober is going well! I'm keeping up (though still a little stuck on 'moon').

QUICK QUESTION: If you've done Inktober before, or are doing Inktober now, have you/will you be turning your Inktober pieces into products?

I'd love to see what y'all have cookin' up, idea wise for that! I'm thinking of a cutesy but sarcastic little urban proverb book. Maybe not for all of the Inktober pieces, probably about 28 of them.

How about you?
Cheers!
Shani

Great feedback @Georgios-Christopoulos, will give it a shot!

@xin-li 😁

@carlianne thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. I’m going to try the grid today, I’ve heard lee say that before but I’ve never actually done it. Thank you!

Sure! It looks like a lot of fun!