About
Shitty Watercolour is the online handle for a United Kingdom-based painter who posts photographs of original watercolor paintings on the social news site Reddit. His work is often compared to illustrations by artist Quentin Blake, who he admits to drawing inspiration from.
History
The Shitty_Watercolour Reddit[1] account was created on February 15th, 2012, with his first submission featuring a watercolor painting of the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog (shown below).
Three days later, Shitty_Watercolour participated in a painting battle with the novelty account ShittierWatercolor, receiving thousands of karma points from up votes in the thread.[4] On February 21st, an interview with Shitty Watercolour was published on the Internet news site The Daily Dot,[3] in which he revealed he had been experimenting with watercolors since December of 2011. On March 24th, the Shitty Watercolour[8] Tumblr blog was launched, highlighting notable works by the artist.
Videos
On April 18th, 2012, Shitty Watercolour launched a YouTube channel showcasing painting videos. On August 5th, 2013, an instructional video was uploaded to the channel demonstrating how he improved his painting ability (shown below). In the first 24 hours, the video accumulated upwards of 92,000 views and 240 comments.
IAmA Ban
In May of 2012, Shitty Watercolour was banned by the moderator karmanaut from the “ask me anything” subreddit /r/IAmA for posting links to his personal website. On June 1st, The Daily Dot[6] published an article about the ban, which quoted Shitty Watercolour who claimed he had not profited from his Reddit account.
Marriage Proposal
On July 9th, 2012, Redditor bigmur submitted a post to the /r/pics[7] subreddit thanking Shitty Watercolour for helping him propose to his fiance, which included a photo of the couple holding the painting (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained more than 5,100 up votes and 770 comments. On the following day, The Daily Dot[9] published an article about the post, which featured a slideshow of Shitty Watercolour’s paintings for the proposal (shown below, right).
12-Hour Charity Paint
On October 4th, 2012, Shitty Watercolour posted an announcement[5] that he would be doing customs paintings for 12 hours to raise money for the non-profit organization charity:water,[10] aiming to provide potable drinking water for people in developing countries.
Search Interest
External References
[1]Reddit – Shitty_Watercolour
[2]Reddit – Sonic the Hedgehog
[3]The Daily Dot – He turns posts into paintings on Reddit
[4]Reddit – "My friends dad was flying out of Rome":He turns posts into paintings on Reddit
[5]Reddit – Charity draw starting now!
[6]The Daily Dot – Popular novelty account shitty_watercolour banned from Reddits IAmA
[7]Reddit – With a little help from shitty watercolour i got engaged
[8]Shitty Watercolour – Shitty Watercolour
[9]The Daily Dot – Reddits shitty watercolour helps couple get engaged
[10]Charity: Water – Charity Water