- Oct 30, 2016

Harry Potter Art Journal: Hogwarts

Hogwarts is magic. If you have read Harry Potter you have imagined what receiving your Hogwarts letter would have felt like. You have imagined yourself riding on the Hogwarts Express and stepping into the Great Hall for the first time. You have imagined having the sorting hat placed on your head and hearing it call out your house (HUFFLEPUFF!) and you have imagined your first steps into your Common Room.

You have imagined what taking classes would be like, and which classes would be your favorite. Would you excel at Herbology or Charms? Maybe Care of Magical Creatures?

Hogwarts is a character in Harry Potter as much as Hagird, Dean, or Lavender. It is always changing, evolving, playing tricks on the students. A safe haven. The site of the final battle.

This is my vision of what Hogwarts looks like at night. Magical. Sparkling. Lots of towers and windows. Glowing. Huge.

The Process

I started building a blue background, mixing different shades of blue, and then I then splattered with gold “stars”. So fun to do and so pretty to look at. Then I began working on the castle.

The castle gave me some challenges. I had a vision to overlap different shades of tissue paper to create depth. One of the papers I used was a beautiful shimmery purple gold. I thought it would be perfect, until I added the modge podge to glue it to the paper. It turned from a beautiful purple color to brown. Not my plan. And the overlapping depth no longer worked with the icky brown color. So I pulled out my pen and started to draw. Trees, tall towers, windows, spires, Hogwarts began to take shape. When I was happy with the design I traced over it with gold gel pen.

I finished by highlighting some of the stars, and smudging some of the gel pen around the outline of the castle to make it glow.