I’m super happy, almost giddy about this pet portrait. Here’s why…swipe along for an interesting tale about mistakes can turn into wonderful opportunities for creative solutions. 💜 1. Final cleaned up digital scan 🥰 2. Close up zoom of digital art file 🔎 3. Zoom out of actual illustration 🔍 4. The illustration IRL (in real life) 🥸 5. The final presentation with a flap splash page on top. I haven’t cut/taped a presentation page on a piece of art since Don Brandes’ advanced media class back in college. 🤓 6. I mounted the water soluble crayon and colored pencil illustration on Strathmore recycled sketch paper to a thicker card stock and glued down the lavender construction paper die-cut on top because guess what…? 7. The original had the dog’s name spelled incorrectly!!! 😱🫣 8. Quick behind the scenes showing a looser study of Rhodey’s head in my sketchbook. Comparing the two makes me want to paint and draw WAY bigger from now on. Something I was forced to understand every day at college was how much more impressionistic scribbles and looser mark making can look. You can only achieve that kind of free flowing movement and looseness when you paint and draw BIG. I drew that study of Rhodey’s head in like 30 or so minutes. So freeing, so quick, & it looks amazing and fun (IMO, in my opinion). 9. The culprit prep ink sketches I was practicing at 100% scale a few days before I sat down to work on the final…clearly I was distracted that night…that pesky random “D”! Who the heck is Rhodney?!? 🙈 10. I swear I knew Rhodey’s name from the get go. Y’all saw my post of the original sketchbook explorations, right? 😳 Long story short, I would like to thank that erroneous N because it made the final illustration like 10000x better!!! Don’t you agree? 💜 • • • #PandaErica #kidlitart #petportrait #dog #dogsofinstagram #gooddog #crayon #colorpencil #constructionpaper #beautifulmistake #lifeofanartist https://www.instagram.com/p/Cqc5rshOmKM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=