This week was even more of a rollercoaster than week two! I spent way more time on a few of these drawings, but then burnt out for drawing on other days. Still, I’m proud of this week for two drawings that are on double page spreads! I want to do more of this.

Day 15:

“The Dragon’s Gift”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

You may have noticed that I like dragons. Dragons are cool. I like that they resemble lizards, I like when they’re huge, ancient, keepers of knowledge. I like when they’re forces of nature and awe-inspiring avatars of destruction. I like when they’re tiny and pet-sized. I tend to draw Western-style dragons more often, but I like Asian-style dragons too.

This dragon is one of the gigantic Western-style ones. A girl has come to ask for something. The dragon gives her a gift to help her. I don’t know what she needs or what gift she receives, but I like her courage in approaching this terrifying creature for aid.

I’ve realized that I’m not good at keeping track of how long it takes to make each sketch, so I made an effort to do that more this week. This drawing took approximately an hour total.

Day 16:

“Puppy”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

One of my former coworkers retired recently. She is so helpful and compassionate, and really helped me to settle into my job when I first started working there. I wanted to give her something as a “thank you” for being a great coworker. This is what I ended up drawing for her.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do just the outline of the dog, or take the time to detail the fur as well. I decided to go for it on the second option and luckily it turned out OK!

Day 17:

“Mermaid”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

I like mermaids as much as the next person. I too wanted to become a mermaid when I was in elementary school. As I’ve grown older, I’ve started to appreciate a more “fishy” design for mermaids. In pop culture, mermaids look like Ariel: they have long, flowing hair, shellfish bikinis to cover their breasts, and simple fishtails with a single large fin at the end. I like the idea of a mermaid that doesn’t have hair or mammary glands, is covered more with scales, and has extra fins like you would see on most fish. Mind you, this design is still not super realistic. Fish don’t need shoulders or long bony arms since they don’t need to climb trees. For me, though, this hits the sweet spot between humanoid and monstrous.

I imagine this is a teenage mermaid. She pierces her fins and wears trendy seaweed clothes.

Somehow, this ended up taking me three hours! I did spend one full hour on the pencil sketch and making sure everything was in a good place. I can’t tell you why the inks took so long. I did put a lot of attention to making sure the tentacle hair and the scales looked alright, so I guess that’s where the time went.

Still from the movie "Luca" from Pixar and Disney. These are great designs for a blend of fishy and humanoid!

Day 18:

“Snowy Evening”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

I’m not really crazy about this one. You’ll notice most of the page is white for the snow. It’s because I wasn’t really in the mood for drawing, but a few days behind. It shows someone walking through a snowy evening towards a house on a hill. This one is also based on an old thumbnail from a few years back. I still like the idea, so I might do a more polished version of this again in the future. It took about 30 minutes to finish this illustration.

Day 19:

“Minotaur”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

I finished reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke this week, a really excellent book! I won’t go too much into the story here because it’s better to experience it for yourself. In the book, there is a motif of a labyrinth and minotaurs (though there’s no actual minotaur in the story, so don’t get too excited). That was rattling around in my brain when I drew this.

I looked up a few different reference pictures for the bull’s head, so it’s not based on any one breed. The horns were really fun to draw! I also read Circe by Madeline Miller earlier this year, which features a very fierce and violent minotaur, but I wanted to draw a more peaceful one in contrast to how they’re usually portrayed. What’s more peaceful than making a daisy chain? He’s just chilling, enjoying life outside the labyrinth.

Usually when I’m drawing in brush pen, I start with the pencil sketch, then grey ink, then black ink. For this one, I did the black ink first and it was kind of a mistake. I didn’t feel as confident with my lines as I usually do. It was good to experiment, but from here one I go back to my usual process. This one took about 30 minutes to complete.

Day 20:

“Fire Mage”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

Trying to catch up, so back to something simple! This is actually a redraw of my day four image. I had trouble with the lighting on that one, so I kept it a lot simpler for this one. Her twisty ponytail echoes the flames. The shawl is pretty simple, but I like how it turned out.

Day 21:

“Reading Under the Tree”

©Amy Blicharz 2022

I liked the way the tree from day nine turned out so much I had to bring that technique back. Here, we can see more of the tree and the woman underneath it. Simple, peaceful, and fun to draw. This took a breezy 40 minutes from pencil sketch to finish, about 10 minutes of which was for the pencil sketch.