Coloring experiment {Process Post}

I want to practice more on textures and expression on colors instead of doing something formulaic. It's pretty tough because my lines are very free-flowing for this image but if I try to use flat colors, the end result feels so non-energetic. I am feeling rather art-blocked recently where I felt like I have a hurdle to improve but I am not able to execute it. I wish to be able to draw more naturally than stiff. It's a pretty hard balance to achieve when I want my art to be super crisp but still have movement. You can kinda see how in recent work, I am ok with a little bit of messiness. 

So I spent about 3 hrs just pushing colors around, *making globs on colors on the picture and then brushing it away to reveal this end result. I feel like this style is too messy for me, I prefer cleaner but I'm pretty happy to see that there is a bit more texture than normal.     / w/ 

That one guy with bread is the reference picture I use the most often in my work when I draw hoodies haha. I just want to show you because today is like the 5th time I use his picture / w/