Winter Creative Challenge

So I did thirty days of drawings in September, and I did around 13 drawings for Inktober in October. Most recently I did a winter creative challenge, and I thought I might post those here, since there are only six pictures and it's been a while since I was on here.

The prompt for this one is "festive mail" and "dynamics" or, motion. It's supposed to look windy, though I suppose she could also be slipping on ice.

On this second, the prompts were "architecture" and "hot cocoa". I used the picture of a girl I follow (Maud of the moor) and I'm really pleased with how she turned out. I'm starting to figure out how to do skin tones in marker pretty good. The camera doesn't capture the colors completely accurately though, especially that bright salmon color on her cheek and hands; it seems much more subtle and blended in real life. I just wish my cityscape behind her looked better; I love drawings of cities by other people but it's really not something I excel at: too many right angles and straight lines. I guess I should practice drawing buildings, but it just sounds tedious. 

I found a picture of an ice cave that I thought was perfect for the prompts "the funny story" and "under the snow." The white areas in the back actually have a really pale pink on them, but its so pale that when it dried you could barely see it, and the camera didn't pick it up well at all. I don't know what funny story the people are telling, but it must be hilarious. Sadly, the format of this drawing didn't work well in the shape of instagram's squares, so I'm not sure many people swiped through to see the whole picture. Plus, now my favorite blue marker is all out because I used it for every winter picture.


 

The pink picture of the girl making snow angels was probably the easiest and fastest drawing of all. The prompts were "snowy butterflies" and "light shades" or pastel tones. I thought snow angels looked a lot like snowy butterflies, and winter skies do have a lot of pink. the girl bears a resemblance to River, especially because that's the exact color of her coat. One other person had the same idea as me; they drew an animal character making snow angels too, but at least I posted mine first!

This drawing with the quilt definitely took the least skill-it was basically like coloring a page in a coloring book. The prompts were "Tree" and "At the edge of the North". Can you find them in the quilt? This was actually the first drawing I did for this challenge. I thought of lots of cool ideas involving northern lights, night skies, and landscapes, but I wanted something more simple that I wouldn't have to find any references to draw, because I didn't have much time. It was actually surprisingly hard to think of symbols that would work well on a Christmas quilt, but it turned out okay.

The very last prompts I did were "lights of December" and  "four characters".  This one too I kept changing my mind about what I'd draw. Up until the last minute I was going to draw a family of four looking out the window by the Christmas tree, with the lights down low. But then I did a few more sketches involving the window, until I suddenly had the idea of people on a train. I was going to do that until I had the thought that it looked a lot like the ferry in Seattle, then I finally had an idea I was excited about. Just like the cityscape earlier, it doesn't look as cool as I had it in my head, but I was thinking about the city lights in the distance, as well as the Christmas boat shows they do at that time. My favorite blue marker was all dried up, but I was able to use a large one of similar color for the sky. This made me use a different technique than planned, but it was actually better and made it look more like a window with reflections.

 

                The interior Christmas lights along the top were a last minute addition, but I think they really made the picture.

                There was actually one more prompt that I didn't do: "by the fireplace", and "the animal." I'm never that excited about drawing animals, so I wasn't too sad that I didn't have time to finish it.