Step Daughter didn’t want to draw anything scary looking so she decided that Spirits from Spirited Away had to be the best option. She’s actually doing a few “Asian” style things this month. Her fan is one of the folding fans her Great Uncle brought her from Thailand.
She wanted to draw No Face and the frog that he swallowed as well as Haku from Spirited Away. She loves Ghibli films. I do too. Haha. She keeps getting Haku’s name wrong though and calls him Haiku. It’s cute. Lately she’s been asking to use a 3D program on her computer to draw. I’ve insisted me continue to do pencil and paper art for the Inktober at least. We’re letting her use the program to doodle as well, but I don’t want her to think digital is the only format.
I’m all for digital art. I know that for some, it’s quite a bit easier than pencil and paper. I’m just a bit apprehensive because my step daughter hasn’t really gotten to work on her basic mundane skills. She bares down too hard with her pencil and hasn’t learned to create basic shapes. There are a ton of tools that do this automatically in the program. Easy short cut, I know. But they don’t even cover this during art class at her elementary school. They’re doing some kind of packet right now that’s “About Us”.
Five years at Elementary school and they’ve neglected color theory, shapes, or any other basic art information. I’m not even sure my step daughter knows that yellow and blue makes green. Her maternal grandmother has paid for expensive art camps over the summers. I think the art programs lately have turned into glorified crafting sessions. I.E. They did Christmas ornaments every year. They don’t even learn to do the clay part. The teacher does it all and they decorate them. Then again, I might be biased because I went to art college for a bit.
Okay! Sorry for the rant about art in education. Here’s my drawing. I decided to follow my step daughter’s lead and drew the tree spirits from Princess Mononoke. Which was one of my first Ghibli films beyond Totoro. I love the Kodamas. I made a few Sculpy ones back in the day. I tried to attach their heads on with springs so they’d move like the ones in the anime. I have no idea where those went, but they were definitely a fav back in the day.
Atelier Whootique 