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.

potterweek prompts

 So I wanted to find something to work on this summer before I had a bunch of portraits to do for Christmas, but I was having trouble getting excited about any ideas.  Then I came across this weeklong challenge on Instagram, where participants drew pictures from the Harry Potter stories, following a series of themes throughout the week.
The list was posted a month in advance so some people had extra time to work on them; as for myself, I saw it about a day into the challenge, but I thought it would be a fun thing to join!
It was inspiring to see all the different ideas from other artists, and it was fun trying to come up with unique ideas that someone else didn't already do, especially since I was doing most of them a day or two late!
Okay, the last one I completed a week late, because I just didn't have time. I did learn I have a hard time simplifying an idea, and working under a deadline, because I only did two of them in one day, with several taking at least three days. It was a great challenge though!
Elora said she wanted to do it too, and she has one picture started that looks great so far, if she ever finishes it, I will post that one too. So, here are the drawings I did, along with the prompt I was following for that day.

1.This first one was the most liked of all the drawings, and it took the least time! Probably because it was early on in the challenge, so lots of people were looking at the entries. The prompt was, "Best friends".  This is about how Lily may have felt when her new friends in Gryffindor were bullying her former friend,Severus. It was a fun quick drawing done over one afternoon, with marker and colored pencil.
 



















2.The prompt was "Must be a Weasley". The polaroid (procured by Arthur I assume) photo is of Ginny's first broom ride, orchestrated by her brothers. But really this is about Molly's life as a mother. I figured wizard kids bring their mom rocks and shells and weeds just like muggle kids. This drawing took two days, and I thought it was really successful. I meant it to be simple, but I kept adding to it. 
 
















3. The prompt was "house colors." Lots of people were drawing themselves in Hogwarts colors, which I was originally going to do too. But the Pottermore website said I was in a completely different house than I thought (I assumed Ravenclaw, or possibly Hufflepuff, but it said Gryffindor.) 
      So I changed my plan, using a photo of Elora. I thought, " I'll draw a simple pic of a Ravenclaw in their common room tower window so it will be fast." But then, " I'll make it 11x14 so it takes three days."  This drawing took the longest of them all, and the curtains were the most time intensive. And then most people didn't like it, I assume because it didn't have bright colors. There are some things I kinda want to fix on it, but we'll see if I ever go back to it. This is all prismacolor pencil.

 


 4. I was way behind at this point, so I combined two of the prompts for this one, "misunderstood", and "flora and fauna". Also, I kept changing my mind about what to draw for the first one, and I had no ideas that were unique for the second one, until I had the idea of recycling the background from an old drawing, and putting Hagrid, Fang, and his cottage into the picture! This background works better for this subject than for the original anyway. I printed the original marker drawing out, then made Hagrid and the cottage out of marker, and glued them into the picture. The only issue I have is that the printer ink of the background didn't photograph the same as the fresh marker on the new elements. In life, they meld together better.

 5.The prompt was  "parental figures". One of the most touching parts of the story for me was when Harry used the resurrection stone and saw these parental figures walking with him, even though they were gone. This is Harry's parents, Lupin, and Sirius Black.
I tried to draw this in a simple style that I would wear on a shirt (probably because I was looking at teefury earlier.)
 

















6. The prompt for this was "Yer a wizard,Harry."  This is the morning after Harry meets Hagrid and they're leaving the barren rock where the Dursleys have spent the night. The storm has broken and that morning was truly the dawn of a new life for Harry.
.At this point the challenge was actually over, but I wanted to finish it, so I took my time coming up with an idea I liked, then I had to wait until I had time to work on it. At first I was going to do Diagon Alley, but everyone did that, or some version of Hagrid talking to Harry when he met him. I decided I wanted to do a landscape, and it turned out pretty good. This took two days, and it's all marker.

Elora's wow words

In Elora's fifth grade class this last year, they had a fun, ongoing assignment that was perfect for her. Every few weeks, they would get a W.O.W. word, or "Word of the week". They were given a definition and then had to create a drawing to go with the word, which was then displayed in the hallway until the next one.
They were given about a week to work on each one; some kids got done in one day, and Elora's teacher was nice enough to let her take as long as she wanted to finish hers...which was often at least two weeks. But she came up with some awesome pictures!
I've said it before, Elora already draws better than I could by ninth grade, and she is very creative. So I thought I'd post her "wow words" here for you to check out. Remember you can click on them to make it bigger.

She looked at the movie cover for "Aladdin" for clothing ideas on this one.

The sheriff is holding a small star badge and saying it's immaculate. Everyone in her class loved the vulture poop. Haha.She looked up photo references for the bird and the tumbleweed, so she could draw them correctly.

 For this one, she had me find a picture of the palace guards in England, to see how tall their hats are. The funniest part is the portrait on the wall, where the frame is full of a hat and eyes, instead of the face, Hilarious.

For this one, Elora knew she wanted to draw a goat, but was looking for an idea that would work. I showed her a Youtube video of a goat in a palm tree, and that's what she drew! She cut out some brown paper for the tree, and again found photo references for the goat and tree to draw them right.

I think the name of this class is funny. She loosely based the chef on the Sweedish chef from the Muppets.

I like how she made the different kinds of light in this one. She was trying hard to show colors as well as how dark it was in the room, not an easy feat. The window and stars turned out great!

I hope Elora gets to do more projects like this next year!