Really did not think I would make it in time!!

I've been wanting to make stickers for yeeears, and I'm finally doing it in prep of opening my store!

I needed to do a vignette for my portfolio so I decided to try something more simple/personal this month. AND I finally got to bust out my watercolors!

I love how whimsical everyone has gone this month. I feel so much envy.

"Yeti!!"
"Cover your mouth when you sneeze!"

I was feeling inspired by the live demo with Brooklyn so I wanted to do a simple fun gesture illustration.

Honestly don't know how the judges are going to narrow it down this month. So many amazing entries~!

So I was all set to do something funny and I just couldn't get myself to commit to it. I just kept thinking of this image and eventually just had to paint it to get the feelings out.

I hit 10,000 followers on instagram, so I did a quick illo to celebrate. :):):)

Here is my submission. Trying to figure out the balance, between loose, and rough vs. unfinished.

I made a store!! You guys I'm so proud that I launched my store. It's been my dream from like ten years, and there's basically hardly anything in it, but I have learned SO MUCH by finally just TRYING to do it that even if it fails it'll be worth it. And having even just launched it I'll know what to do and be less scared to keep trying new things.

So I'm happy that I launched my store but EVEN happier that I have this healthy emotion of just being proud that I'm going for it instead of afraid of failing connected to it. Which I completely credit to SVS. ️

@Jacy13 thank you!

I've been focusing on portfolio only pieces since last November. So this month I'm just doing random fun stuff. It's been a nice break.

@Laurel-Aylesworth did you make sure you have a brush loaded? When you first start it might only have the basic brush which you can't use the brush tool for.

In the brushes pallet you should be able to load a new brush or copy and paste something you've drawn with a brush into the file

@Manuel-Mal Hi welcome, you have some great work!! For what it's worth, I think you should post your work here AND have a critique group. It's helpful to have a smaller group of people helping you as well as this forum.

I already have a group but wanted to welcome you anyway

I love the extra storytelling of seeing the orange tree in the periscope!

I don't mind it flipped as it leads me to the text and feels natural with reading left to right, but i thin either way is fine. Looks great!

@Norman-Morana oh yeah that helps! I like that the monkey feels more like a focal point and the text reads better too!

Not sure if you wanted to make more edits, but one thought I had on your image was to make the eye of the periscope look to the right instead of the left? Right now the monkey and periscope lead my eye off the page to the left, but if it was turned right at the top I wonder if it would lead me back over to the monkey again? Especially if they was a curved tree or something to help lead your eye there.

And you could try moving the text a little bit to the right or centering it a little more? It's a tad tight on the left side.

Really fun and creative image as always though! I think you had the best idea of the bunch

@Taigyo I'm not sure how long you worked on this, but I agree the reason it feels less finished because the mark making looks less intentional, more like a sketch. Overall it looks kind of rushed?

If you used this image as your color study and then did another pass on a new piece of paper and took your time, maybe it would look more finished because you had less figuring it out as you went?

But also I do think this is something that will come with time the more comfortable you get in general with your tools

@Katie-Kordesh so these are super cute. The bus scene I didn't get that they were waiting for the bus, more like the bus never stopped? Not sure if that is ok. I like the yellow option.

For the cat, I think that one is a great example of the actors on a stage issue you're struggling with. In theater the rule is you never have your back to the audience. So if you notice the girl who is looking out could be turned around looking at the cat, but is instead looking forward so it feels more like an actor in a stage.

And in the bus every single character is facing forward, you could have some of them face profile or mix it up to feel less static

For myself trying to see if I can apply the gestures to characters, I changed her expression a little because I thought it might be more engaging to look at the flowers, but I might have lost some of the energy that way. Let me know!

@Lorna-H oh yay that's great! And thank you so much!