This morning my boys asked what today’s drawing was going to be. I said I wasn’t sure, but that I was going to be taking all nineteen suggestions left on my list, writing them out on slips of paper, and choosing a slip for each day remaining in the challenge. They both thought that was a great way to figure it out, and then my youngest said these six words:
“I hope it’s the dolphin today!”
I paused, and then said there wasn’t a dolphin on my list.
He said he had asked for one, and the more he talked about it, the more I remembered him suggesting it. How it never got onto my list, I don’t know.
And then we remembered another drawing. And another…and another….and even another.
I forgot FIVE SUGGESTIONS. My list went up to twenty four suggestions this morning!!! Yikes!!!!
At lunch time, I put all the slips into a bowl and my four year old buddy who was visiting today chose today’s subject from the bowl:
Title: Badger
Size: 5×7
Medium: Graphite pencil and white ink gel pen on acid free paper
Inspired/nominated by: Me, unintentionally. Back when I was drawing the skunk, I wanted to turn him into a badger. I had the idea of doing a realistic version of the different animal mascots for the Hogwarts Houses in the Harry Potter series, so here’s the Hufflepuff mascot! The only problem I’ve run into with doing this set of drawings is that I’m terrified of snakes, so choosing a reference image, studying it, and then trying to reproduce it will give me nightmares for at least a week….so I may have to rethink this series!
Favorite parts: His chin hairs! And his white face stripe!!!!
Challenging parts: Getting the white fur to stand out from the background! I didn’t want to push the background too dark, but outlining the fur with a pencil or adding pencil lines for extra fur was going to either make it feel fake or make the fur too dark. What I ended up doing was taking one of my blender sticks and slightly outlining the fur with it. It turned out to be the same darkness as the background, but added just enough definition to the fur to make it stand out more!
Product availability: The original drawing is available in my Etsy shop here. Prints can be found here!
What is your Hogwarts House? We have three Hufflepuffs (badger), a Gryffindor (lion), and a Ravenclaw (raven/eagle). Our cat would definitely be a Slytherin (snake)!!!!
Back to the Drawing Board 
Oh my! I LOVE this one! I love the curiosity in his/her eyes! This is beautiful!
Thank you Corrie!!!! ❤