My Epic Art Tutorial Fail

4/14/2017

I've said before on So Not Niche that I like to keep things real. Or at least offer you something different.

Everyone likes to share their success stories, or perfectly polished creations.

Because stuff like that looks good, right? Well, today I thought I would share the absolute opposite of perfection.

My epic art tutorial fail...

I enjoy making tutorials. My last post was a blogging tutorial. The difference between a tutorial that teaches you how to build a blog, and one that shows you how to draw a picture?

I can fix mistakes on the first one.

See, my brilliant plan was to create an art tutorial for Easter to post on my Oklahoma blog. (it is literally just art tutorials and some Oklahoma stuff right now. I may throw in closet organization or something later).

I sat down and did the planning, the practice doodles, and the finally the step-by-step photos of drawing the design. I wanted to show a completed version at the end and offer up a printable of the line art too.

Before we get to the bad stuff, let me show you the finished product.

That's not so bad is it? Nah.

I actually colored that in PicMonkey before I edited my step-by-step photos.

And that, my friends, is where the "big problem" came in.

Here is one of the tutorial photos.

Obviously, I should have looked at these sooner. Pale, blurry...shadowy. And to think I fought the wind all day so I could draw outside in that "magical" natural light.

Oh, and that is edited, by the way.

Here is another:

Oh hey! All hail the blue floating halo!

The problem with taking photos outside in natural light is that you can't really see the screen. To remedy this, I USUALLY take several photos of each step, using different settings and flash options.

And that looks like what happened here, huh? But no. This was taken in the same place, in the same light, only minutes before the image I showed up above. So why all the lovely blueness?

That's not a halo, btw. It's a bucket hole. (bucket hole is sorta what I called my camera after seeing these photos, too. )

See...the problem is that I can't exactly go take another photo of the tutorial. Because I didn't draw all those steps on different sheets of paper (I might in the future!). I just kept drawing until I had a finished piece.

It looked okay on paper!

But...wow.

For reference, here is a photo from my sailboat tutorial. It's not "perfection" but it is clean and bright.

Strangely enough, it was taken with the same camera, around the same time of day, with the same lighting conditions.

The only difference was that in order to find natural light inside my house (which only has 3 small windows in the whole living area) I had to draw with my clipboard propped across my kitchen sink.

So the light here was the same exact west sun, but it was coming through a clean, un-curtained window (with no electric lights on in the house).

Lesson Learned

I thought I was on the ball getting the drawings and photos done ahead of time. The biggest fail of all however was NOT my camera.

It was the fact that I waited so long to edit the photos for the actual tutorial post.

If I had done that two weeks ago, I would have had plenty of time to draw the whole tutorial again. (In my defense, the images look great in the camera gallery.)

On the computer though: Hello darkness my old friend...

Since I won't have time to recreate the entire tutorial, I might as well just do a "quick version" here for fun.

This is kind of how my instructions sound when try to word my tutorials in my head. :D

How to Draw An Easter Bucket (The Artist's Way!)

1. Draw a bucket.
2. Draw some eggs in it.
3. Draw some carrots.
4. Add some flowers of your choice.
5. Make cute designs on the eggs and or bucket.
6. Stick a bunny on top.
7. Color it. Or not.

So there you have it. My epic art tutorial fail. With yucky photos and all.

I totally missed out a holiday opportunity, but my loss is your gain. Instead of posting the finished pieces for sale, I'm giving them to you for free.

Happy Easter! Don't forget to grab your free art and coloring page below!

What's your biggest blogging blooper lately?

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