Blanket Fort

If you're on facebook, you've probably seen the drawing I recently completed, of the kids all building a blanket fort in their bedroom. The drawing is 11x14", created in marker, and took something like three weeks to complete, if you count all the days I couldn't work on it.

 

There were a lot of things that gave me the idea for the picture. First, I had been thinking for a long time that I wanted to do some kind of picture set in their room, because I've always liked how the three rungs on the bunk bed are mirrored in the three shelves on the bookcase. I don't know why, but I stare at it every time I'm singing to them at bedtime.
Secondly, I have been trying to think of a drawing that could include the baby. I had so much fun doing the drawing of all the kids in the forest last spring, and I wanted to draw another with all the kids included.



















After Eli was born, I did a picture that included him, but it was more of a token presence, as he was so far away. It was one of the first few drawings I did with markers and people. Can you spot baby Eli in the picture? Yeah, you'll probably have to click on it to see it larger.

Anyway. I'd been thinking of doing a drawing with all the kids gathered around the baby looking at her, but it didn't seem too exciting, and I had no setting in my head of where it could be. Outside? around a chair? Who knows.
Then one  day, shortly after we had bought the second bunk bed, the kids made a cool fort. I didn't actually see them playing in it, but I looked into the room at the aftermath, and thought it was mesmerizing how the light came through the blankets and it all flowed together. I instantly knew this would make a cool picture, so I grabbed my camera to capture the basic idea of it. It doesn't exactly look like my drawing, but this is what I saw:

I knew I wanted to include the yellow blanket and the curtains, as I loved the light shining through them. I also knew the big blanket draped across the top of the room had the coolest organic shape that could pull the whole thing together, if I drew it right.
I drew several basic drawings to decide where I wanted the kids to be in the picture, and I looked up several anime-type marker drawings of people online to get ideas. When I started, the baby was going to be in the foreground with the kid in the blanket, but then I realized she'd work best in the chair as I could craft all of the lines and the light to draw the viewer's attention to that spot.
I intentionally drew the bars on the beds at odd slants, for more energy in the picture, and because I know I get bored drawing a picture if I'm too hung up on making angles and lines perfectly accurate, and it becomes a chore rather than something fun.
The hardest thing to decide was the designs on the blankets. I wanted a variety of blanket types, not just the ones we really have but some other cool things like rag quilts. I liked the idea of lots of different patterns, but I didn't want there to be too much chaos that drew your eye away from the baby and the light from the window.
I pictured the drawing having dark colors all around, then a light center, but I didn't want it all to be blue, so I gambled with other colors. One thing I discovered was that I really need to get a light purple, I wanted it for so many things. The purple that is there is a dark color with white drawn over the top of it.
The last things I completed were the floor and the blanket across the top of the drawing. I had decided earlier that the top quilt would be a rag quilt, but I was hesitant on choosing the colors. I didn't like the designs on the real blanket, and I'd already used tons of blue. I think it was our dinner mats that inspired me to use the colors I did! They have colorful fruit on them. I figured that combination: blue, yellow, green, and orange- could help unite the warm colors around the chair, and the cool colors around the picture edges.
At first, it was way too bright, drawing too much attention from everything else. Then I put gray over the closest part of the blanket, but it made it look dull and flat, rather than darker. (And it did need to be dark since the light is directly behind it). Finally, I used some darker shades of the colors combined with the gray on that closest part of the blanket, leaving the blanket bits closer to the window the bright simple colors I had started with, to add some dimension.
For the floor, I decided to go with brown wood because it was a warm neutral color for the center of the drawing, and using the real room's blue carpet would have been overkill on the blue! The toys on the floor were last minute additions, because really, what kids room has a clean floor while the kids are there? I used some of the real toys that they have-along with some fictional blocks- because the colors were perfect for what I wanted.
At the last minute, I added a bunch of green to the walls so it wasn't just blue, and this also helped unite all the details.

There area  few things I don't like about this drawing, or would change if I drew it differently. For instance, the only face I really like is Joshua's in the chair. It's like I have a mental block for drawing faces if they're going to be marker. It doesn't help that I don't think I have the variety of skin colors I really need to do a smooth skin depiction.
But overall, I like this drawing a lot!