30 Days of Potter - day #19 - Favourite HP drawing?
19. A favorite fanart
The art was one of the delightful surprises on entering the HP fandom. I'd joined up because of the fan fiction, but hadn't thought nor known of things like fan art. While I've never really gone looking for art specifically I've always enjoyed looking at what I've come across in various fandom locations. And some drawings have really worked well too. Some of the romantic ones that have shown us what we'd like to have seen in the books (or have read in the fanfics), giving us an emotional kick quite distinct from that carried via prose. Or other drawings which really did feature a Hermione Jane Granger with truly 'bushy' hair; I've always gotten a buzz out of those.
One of my favourite sets of fan art is a sequence of seven drawings by glockgal, one picture for each Hogwarts year. I thought it was a great theme, and very much enjoyed how she integrated some of the elements of the various books into the images. Go and have a look at them before you read further - they're here.
(I said there were seven drawings, but only six are coming up for me at the moment; I'm not sure if there's a problem at my end or whether one of the pictures - the one for year #2? - has gone missing on the server.)
Anyway, the last four pictures/years are the best, I reckon - showing Harry's vexation at Rita Skeeter's articles for year #4; a wonderful simmering CAPSLOCK Harry for year 5; the farcical "prophecy revelation" scene of book 6 (I love how she caught Hermione's black eye); and the best of the bunch, delivering the emotional payload - these were drawn before DH, when we were wondering whom might perish - a big Trio moment at the end, they all made it, yay!! (I love that Hermione Granger class hug!).
One artist that I remember fondly is runeharmonic. She was an excellent fellow H/Hr fan; we had some great exchanges. Sadly she abruptly left the fandom/livejournal immediately after the publication of Deathly Hallows (it's depressing sometimes to contemplate those who allowed Rowling's bad canon to have such an impact on them).
Anyway, I always enjoyed her drawings - and her H/Hr arguments which accompanied them - even if her tendency to draw eyes with no pupils got on my nerves at times. In fact she did me the favour of touching up her last LJ drawing just so the eyes would pass my muster :-) - the drawing is here.
One other drawing that had a notable impact on me is by mudblood428; it's here.
I think it's an excellent picture, but what I found really interesting was how it inspires in me the same disdain at how we are supposed to believe that Ginny was really Harry's 'equal' in the canon. In just the same way that I roll my eyes when reading a Rowling quote at how Ginny was Harry's 'equal' because, uhm, they both "went through a big emotional journey" (getting over a crush and succumbing to adolescent chest monsters rank higher in gravity than they did in my day), so too do I feel that a drawing like this is akin to false advertising. The "hard, blazing look" you see from Ginny here was something she produced after winning a game of quidditch!
I'd love to believe that the two young people in this drawing were warriors of equal standing, ready to go out and save the world, while watching each other's backs, but as it was then (post HBP), and as DH turned out ... nah. Equals, not.
It's interesting, though, how mudblood428's drawing - with its attached advertising banner, granted - can make such a stand on Rowling's famous quote. And thus attract my ire in equal measure, as much as any supporting fandom essay. Truly some pictures are worth a thousand words!