Inktober 2017: Intro and Drawings From Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This year I finally achieved a long-time personal goal: I actually participated in and completed Inktober!  For those of you who are not familiar with Inktober, it is an event where artists create an ink drawing every day during the month of October. It was first created years ago by the artist Jake Parker as a way to get back into the habit of doing art in a traditional medium (he's primarily a digital artist). It's become a huge deal with many artists from all backgrounds and experience levels participating together.  I have watched artist friends participate for the past several years, but have never worked up the motivation to actually do it... until now!

In order to stay motivated to make it through the whole month, I knew that I would have to choose a subject I love: the Harry Potter books. :D I also knew that I would struggle and spend way too much time every day trying to decide what to draw if I didn't have predetermined parameters for my topics. So I took the total number of pages in the entire 7-book series (US versions) and divided it by 31 (the number of days in October). I therefore had to draw something from every 132nd page* in the series!  Due to the way I divided up the pages, there are obviously many more drawings from the later, larger books than from the early, shorter ones.

Doing these drawings was interesting and really fun. This gave me a chance to revisit some great, small moments in the books that aren't in the movies and that I had almost forgotten about. Overall this was a great experience, and I learned/improved quite a bit over the course of the month!

Without further ado, here are the drawings from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone!

I started out with a drawing of Severus Snape during the famous "our new celebrity" moment! I wanted to make sure that I was following the physical character descriptions that are in the book, rather than basing my drawings on the movies. But really, Alan Rickman was so perfect that they are still very similar. ;) Also, ink is hard! I'm so used to being able to do shading, but I managed to kind of do it by drawing faint, hatching lines and smudging them with my finger.

Day One: "Roll Call"

 I decided to try a different style for this second drawing-- much more cartoony, simple, and shape-oriented. I really liked it! I immediately had the idea to do this different perspective on the scene so you could see Neville Longbottom's wonderful bunny slippers as well as the trio trying to sneak out of the Gryffindor Common Room. However, I drew it a bit too small to give Harry, Ron, or Hermione much detail at all. But I'm still very happy with it.

Day Two: "A Great Deal of Bravery"

*Note: For anyone who might for some reason check the pages here, I actually calculated incorrectly and thought it was every 136th page... But I realized my mistake when I got to the third book.