Inktober 2017: Drawings From Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (part 1)

I feel like I improved a lot and really started to figure out my style while doing the drawings for book four: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!  Since there are more drawings from these later books, I will be separating them into two posts per book from now on. Here is the first half of book four's drawings:


Yay! I finally got a chance to draw Ron Weasley! :) This was a hilarious moment from the Quidditch World Cup to get to draw. Hermione is not impressed with how ridiculous the Veela make the boys get. Don't jump over the edge, Harry-- I promise it won't really impress them! ;)

Day 9: "They Brought Veela!"

I wasn't sure how I was going to draw this page at first, since half of it was just what was written on the Triwizard Tournament arrival sign, but I think this turned out pretty well.  I also got to look up and use the official crests for both Durmstrang School and Beauxbatons Academy (who knew those existed?).

Day 10: "The Arrival Notice"

Good ol' Fred and George Weasley! Turns out that drawing identical twins is hard because... they have to look identical. haha I think I managed to do alright with that, though.  Poor Neville Longbottom-- at least it was only Canary Creams this time! It was tricky trying to figure out how to make Neville look like a molting bird, but this worked okay.

Day 11: "Canary Creams- Only Seven Sickles!"

Inktober 2017: Drawings From Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

I discovered that I am very much a novice when it comes to drawing with ink.  It's been tricky to figure out, but not being able to erase or hit "undo" has been good for me!  For these drawings I started experimenting with shading. Since I'm just drawing with a roller pen (rather than actual ink and brush tools), I'm just shading by smudging the ink with a damp q-tips.  It's not super professional, but hey, it works!

Here are the drawings for the third book in the series: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

There were several fun, potential drawing ideas on this page to choose from, but I decided to go with a straight-forward portrait of Percy Weasley from the Egypt vacation his family took. I tried to make sure he looked properly pompous with his Head Boy ("humongous bighead") badge. 

Day 5: "Humungous Bighead"

Okay, I loved that I got to draw flobberworms. haha It was cracking me up! Poor Harry is not impressed with the state of Hagrid's Care of Magical Creatures class. And one of those flobberworms may have gotten a bit too much lettuce stuffed down it's throat... ;)

Day 6: "Flobberworms (Most Boring Creatures in Existence)"

Finally, a drawing of one of the other members of Harry's trio: Hermione Granger! And of course the ever-important Hagrid.  So here is Hermione, bless 'er heart, managing to find time to help poor Hagrid prepare for Buckbeak's trial. She certainly does look tired, though!

Day 7: "Trial Prep"

The poses for both Harry and Hermione on this drawing gave me quite a bit of grief. This drawing definitely took the longest out of any of them so far. I started several times before I settled on a composition/positions that I liked, but I think it turned out all right. And I'm very happy with the tiny Buckbeak in the background!

Day 8 "A Patronus? But who conjured it?"

Inktober 2017: Drawings from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Here are the Inktober drawings I did on days three and four from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 

I decided to stick with the more cartoony style that I used in the Neville drawing from the end of the first book for the rest of my drawings.  This portrait of Gilderoy Lockhart (holding up a portrait of himself) was fun to do! I was still trying to figure out how to ink in things like his robe, without covering up details in the design-- it's tricky not being able to do gradient shading like I'm used to.  Also, after this drawing, I realized that I was going to have to start taking my husband's advice and draw BIGGER! This whole drawing is only about 2 square inches, so it was really difficult to ink in small details like the words and portrait on the Travels with Trolls book.

Day Three: "Five-time Winner"

Gotta love the singing valentine from Ginny Weasley! Poor Harry is so embarrassed. :D It was fun revisiting this scene-- it's one of my favorites, but since it's not in the movies I had almost forgotten about it.

Day Four: "Eyes As Green As a Fresh Pickled Toad"

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.

Painting again!

I finally have started painting again! I haven't found (or more accurately: made) the time to do any serious oil painting since I finished classes this past Spring.  But then we had an all-day blizzard about a week and a half ago!  My work was cancelled and so I had an entire day stuck at home with nothing to do.  The conditions were perfect for finally motivating myself to break out the paints. It was a little hard starting up again after such a hiatus, but it was really enjoyable.  I decided to stick with what I'd last been practicing: portraits!  I even took some progress shots of the second, smaller portrait I did (a pseudo self-portrait) so you can see my process.  In addition to the paintings I also have done a few sketches and some more Sketchbook Pro digital coloring.  Enjoy!

There's nothing quite like painting while watching your favorite movie during a blizzard.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out (especially for my first one after so long)!

 Here are the progress photos showing my process for the second painting (the final picture is the finished product):

 Sketching on colored background

Laying in a flat skin tone, refining outlines, and starting to define general cool light/color shapes

Adding warm light/color to the other side of the face, starting to block in the big shadow shapes in the hair

Smoothing shapes in the face, painting in the hair and collar, refining detail in the eyes, and adding some background color

                                                     

Here are some recent drawings from my sketchbook!

A teen I saw while working at the library

A quick doodle of a woman I saw at the store where I work (there are definite benefits to working in places with a wide variety of customers/patrons)

A little idea sketch for a project I'm working on

This is the colored version of that Classical Indian/Ancient Egyptian dress I posted about last time.

New Website!

Once again I have neglected my art blog (and my drawing in general). It's an eternal struggle.  But I do have good news-- I was using a lot of the time when I wasn't drawing/posting art to create a website! Hooray!  It's such a nice feeling to have a professional-looking place to showcase my best pieces again.  Please check it out! 

natashamickelson.wordpress.com

One of the reasons I was anxious to get my website up and running is so that I have a place to put my figure drawings.  So as not so alienate any potential readership, I will no longer be uploading my nude figure drawings to this blog.  However, I will still continue to attend the weekly figure drawing sessions and do a lot of drawings through that, so keeping checking my website every so often to see which future pieces I feel most proud of!

And here are some sketches (sorry there aren't more), and one figure drawing (don't worry-- it doesn't show any sensibility-offenders). Enjoy!

There are so many awesome people to draw in the city!

This outfit is based on a dream I had that combined a Classical Indian dance costume with something ancient Egyptian.

I'm very proud of how this turned out. Yay light and shadow!

I'm Back!

Hello, my friends!  Long time no see, right?!  Sorry about the multi-month hiatus-- this summer has been pretty crazy.  We moved out of our apartment and into my in-laws house, we went on a trip to Arizona, we went with my family to EUROPE for a month (so much beautiful art I couldn't handle it), my sister got married, we moved across the country, I got two new jobs, and Andy started a grad school. PHEW!!!

I realize of course that there is still no excuse for not doing art that whole time.  I'm still working on getting back into the habit of doing art on my own regularly instead of just for class (this is a serious goal of mine).  I've been doing better the past couple of weeks though, and I wanted to share some of the things I've done recently. :)

Drawings of people I've seen recently

                            

                                                  I decided to try coloring one of the sketches with Sketchbook Pro (I'm still trying to figure out this program)

Playing with markers!

Drawing hands from paintings in the Yale Art Museum

I drew the main characters in a novel I just read: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  It's a fabulous book and I highly recommend it.  I tried out a slightly different style for these drawings and I'm very happy with how they turned out.  Hooray for fanart! :)

Werner Pfennig

Marie-Laure LeBlanc

Also I've finally found an open Figure Drawing group! Huzzah!!! Going to the first one and starting to draw seriously felt like a breath of fresh air-- I hadn't even realized just how much I missed it until I started again.  Unfortunately it's on the same night that I close at the candy store where I work, so I only get to go for the last 30-45 minutes and most of those are short-ish poses.  But it's so worth it.  I've felt a little rusty, but it's coming back. :)

I only got the last 5 minutes of this pose, so here's a peek at how I start drawings sometimes