Hector Janse van Rensburg
Hector Richard Janse van Rensburg (born 27 October 1993), better known by his pseudonym Shitty Watercolour, is a British painter and cartoonist who started posting watercolour paintings on the social media website Reddit in February 2012, and later expanded to publishing his work on his own website, on Tumblr and on Twitter. He graduated from the University of York with a degree in philosophy, politics and economics. Background Janse van Rensburg is from Cambridge and attended Hills Road Sixth Form College. His mother is Scottish and his father is South African. In 2011, he won a Wilkinson Quincentenary Prize, awarded by St. John's College, Cambridge, to the best entries in an essay competition for high-school students. Boredom and depression led Janse van Rensburg to revisit an old watercolour set and seek subjects to paint. Already a Reddit user, he realized that submissions, comments, and usernames on the website provided him with ample illustration opportunities. At first the quality of his paintings was, in his own opinion, accurately described by his Reddit username Shitty_Watercolour. Encouraged by the response from Reddit users however, among whom he gathered a devoted following, his painting skills improved greatly. Influences Many people have mistaken the artist