Guys! I did it!!!! I was able to do 25 5×7 drawings in 25 days!
I’m a little shocked I was able to get to it some days. Like today. My husband had meetings all day, so it was just me and the three kiddos….and two of them were having a little bit of a rough time if they were together.
It was an “Is it bedtime yet?” kind of day.
But as I had been looking forward to this drawing ALL CHALLENGE, nothing was going to get in the way of my drawing!
It’s a good thing the playroom is the other half of my office, huh? Referee while I work!
Title: If Boathouse Mouse Was Real
Medium: Graphite pencil and ink on acid free paper
Size: 5×7
This was the very first drawing to go on my list of things to do over this challenge! I’m not sure what exactly sparked the idea; I think I had gone through my binder that holds the text for whichever book I’m working on illustrating, and at the back I have my reference drawings for Boathouse as well as other design ideas. I have little sketches of realistic mice from when I was designing him, and I think that was what gave me this idea.
The original idea was NOT what the drawing turned out to be. It was always going to be Boathouse on a worktable in the boathouse. There’d be some tools, wood shavings, and rope around him, and I just thought it was going to be a great picture! However, every time I started laying out the composition, it just would not work. I’m not sure if the proportions of the paper were throwing things off or what exactly, but I knew I was going to have to switch gears.
At first I was really bummed. I’ve been looking forward to this drawing for well over two months, and I wanted to end on a really good note. Having it not work out was not in the plan! But the longer I sat there, the more I thought about things Boathouse loves and does on a regular basis, and it hit me: have him looking out of his favorite scupper! And it worked out beautifully!
It was soooo weird drawing him as a real mouse. I didn’t expect it to be so challenging, but it really was! Boathouse is my little buddy, and drawing him this way just didn’t feel right. I’m looking forward to getting back to drawing him as he really is for Book 4 (which is amazing, by the way), but first we need to release Book 3 (which is finally at the printer!).
The original is unavailable at this time.
To see all of the drawings from this challenge, you can find them all here! It’s so exciting to be able to say that!!!!
I’ll be doing a recap of the entire challenge either tomorrow or Monday. I’ll be talking about how it went, my thoughts, and answering some questions I’ve gotten throughout the challenge. If there’s anything you want to know, leave your question in the comments below!
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