A painting of my Taums Tillimigs, Fritz, Rosrowe, and Flint working in a chaotic kitchen, scrambling to feed the ever hungry Winston (owned by badC4T)

This painting is an entry for a Taum community event: Tail Picker [Flash Event - OPEN]
Tail Picker [Flash Event - OPEN]During the last event a new species of Taum pets was discovered! Wintery creatures called Yetees!,These creatures only come around during winter time, following the cold weather. Using their long claws they burrow into the ground, leaving only their tree-looking tails popping out as a disguise!With winter leaving soon the Yetee’s have began to migrate back north to cooler areas. This means “pine trees,” and even entire mini patches of “forests” have been popping up in the strangest of places. But, this is also the best time to go Tail Picking to try and get a Yetee of your own!-Meet Our Professional Tail Picker-,This is Winston! He is our professional Tail Picker for this season and is here to help you with all your Yetee picking needs!Winston does NOT work for money though!To get our professional picker to search for you you simply have to feed him! Don’t worry, Winston isn‘t a picky eater: fruits, pinecones, veggies, meat. You name it and Winston will eat it!-How To Motivate Winston-To motivate Winston is simple! Just draw your Taum finding some food for him to eat!There are no restrictions on how much you need to draw but, the more effort put into your drawing, the more effort Winston will put into his search for you!-Rating Your Artwork- We have recruited a small panel of judges to rate your artwork based on three tiers: low, med, and high! These ratings will be based on the general quality seen in your DA gallery [IE: If we see your artwork quality is lower than your previous arts’ quality, it will be rated a ’low’ tier].Depending on what our judges rate your artwork decide the chance [%] of finding a Yetee:Low = 30% chanceMed = 60% chanceHigh = 90% chancePlease Use This Form When Submitting Art:Taum: [Masterlist Link]DA Gallery: [Link to your DA Gallery]Artwork:-Due Dates and Entering-Note: You must own a Taum to enter this event!You may enter as many times as you wish! There are no restrictions to how many times you can submit artwork per day. Although, you can only win ONE Yetee! So once you win one, you cannot continue entering to win another!This event will end: February 1st @ 12 pm ESTSo make sure to get your artwork in before then!Submit Artwork Here: https://www.deviantart.com/comments/1/868239344/4898699536Happy Picking!

This painting was a giant experiment, and a huge mistake X'D all is well though, Im happy with the results, despite the struggle.

So the first experiment was using umber ink & a dip pen to do the line art!
I wanted to try controlling the darkness of the lines by diluting the ink as I lined the scene from foreground to background. It's probably not very noticeable now after having painted it, but it was a good exercise in practicing portraying depth with line art.

The second experiment was the more natural color palette! I wanted the painting to be very warm and inviting/comfy. I also recently purchased those classic brown colors: raw umber, burnt umber & burnt sienna. As someone who normally prefers bright neon and unnatural colors, I was pleasantly surprised by these brown colors and saw the value in each. <3 I rarely use earthy natural color palettes, so this painting was a challenge and a breath of fresh air!

I learned in this painting process that I need to practice painting fur more. the Dark green taum at the very bottom of the painting is meant to have fluffy fur, but he looks more like a giant succulent monster XD It still looks cool, but not quite like he's supposed to look. This painting has made me add "Watercolor Fur Studies" to my todo list.

Last but not least, my mistakes... I don't know how many times I must learn the hard way with this mistake...
I painted on the wrong side of the watercolor paper. AGAIN! This happens a lot. It's so difficult to tell the difference between the front and the back. I have to hold the paper under a lamp and closely inspect the textures on each side. The front side has a deeper uniform texture, while the back side as a shallower texture with a horizontal compressed pattern to it. (I use Canson watercolor paper, other watercolor papers might be different). The back side of the watercolor paper is uncoated and not meant to hold water well. The paint dries very quickly and the water doesn't spread well, making every single brush stroke visible. I noticed the error I made after I was well into the painting process, so I didn't want to start over, nor did I have the time to. Thankfully the painting is so detailed and chaotic it distracts from the ugly brush strokes. But they are most noticeable in the dark brown area on the very bottom of the painting.

Advice to avoid this problem:
I think this problem happens a lot to me because of my lineart process. I print my digital sketch on printer paper and tape it to the back of the watercolor paper so I can use a lightbox to trace it. The process of flipping it over and taping it to the back probably confuses me a bit, or I forget that I've already flipped it to the back and flip it again taping it to the front side... I tend to get "In the zone" and a little absent minded when I am excited about painting/drawing. Either way, I solution to this issue is to put a tiny "X" on a corner of the back side of the watercolor paper. This way it's a little easier to tell which side is front vs back, especially when your head is in the clouds like mine usually is when I'm painting. XD

6 inch x 9 inch Large Painting
Canson Cold Press Watercolor Paper (Accidentally painted on the backside of the paper ;_; )
Rohrer & Klingner Ink (Umber) - for Lineart
Daniel Smith Watercolors (Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, Aussie Red Gold, Serpentine Genuine & Undersea Green) - for Painting
Copic Opaque White Ink - for Highlights


Taums-Den

https://www.deviantart.com/coconutcow/art/Kitchen-Chaos-868931751