Emmy Pflugh posted: " It's the very last week for February and following to the Leap Day by tomorrow, and with that, it's time for another new fun Watercolor of the Month on today's post! 🎨 We have finally reached up to the top with the 60th Watercolor of the Month, wh"
It's the very last week for February and following to the Leap Day by tomorrow, and with that, it's time for another new fun Watercolor of the Month on today's post! 🎨
We have finally reached up to the top with the 60th Watercolor of the Month, which is super crazy to believe, but yes, it's officially number sixty! So, which watercolor drawing did I end up choosing for February 2024? Well, we're definitely going back into the past, and the 60th Watercolor of the Month is going to be my very first watercolor fan art of The Wizard of Oz, based on the classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Of course, you've got the leading characters, such as Dorothy Gale, her dog Toto, and her three Oz friends: the Scarecrow, who desires for a brain, the Tin Man, who desires for a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, who desires for courage. Together, they have to journey down at the yellow brick road to go all the way down to the Emerald City to meet the Wizard himself, but they have to fight off against the Wicked Witch of the West, before he can grant their wishes.
If you are an Oz fan, like me, you also may have grown up watching the 1939 MGM film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that stars Judy Garland as Dorothy, and one of the great moments in my life I'll never forget for this month was having the opportunity to go see The Wizard of Oz on the big screen at the movie theater for the first time. It was part for the Fantom Events, for the film's 85th anniversary. I went to see it with my mom and grandmother, and it was just amazing to watch it on the big screen, even though I've seen it many times from my childhood but seeing it on the big screen was just absolutely great! Of course, one week later, we got to see the release of My Fair Lady (1964) on the big screen for its 60th anniversary. I've seen My Fair Lady on TV, but never seen it on the big screen, and it was wonderful.
I worked on this Wizard of Oz watercolor fan art in year 2019, and first shared it on December 23rd, during the Christmas holidays, so nearly five years ago. I thought it would be fun to see the four main Oz characters drawn and designed my own animation look, but of course, like how I approach in illustrating scenes from the Harry Potter stories by J.K. Rowling, it was important for me to stay true to the source material from L. Frank Baum's book. This drawing is not very much of an illustration, but just a simple fan art of Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Lion altogether on the yellow brick road in the entire Oz green background.
I never read the book growing up as a child, until I was twenty-three. I got my own copy as a Christmas present in 2017, and because I've always loved the classic film, I thought it would be nice to try and read the book, maybe do comparison between the book and the 1939 movie. I'll tell you this: it's very much like how you see the movie, but once you read the novel, there are some elements that weren't show in the film, which is very understanding back in that time. For example, in the book, Dorothy's magical slippers were silver, whereas in the 1939 film, it was changed into ruby slippers, which that becomes one of the iconic movie costumes worn by Judy Garland. But hey, you can see sparkles, thanks to the magic of using white acrylic paint to create the artistic effect.
In designing the characters in my animation look, I tend to draw them very much like how L. Frank Baum saw them in his imagination, especially looking at the book illustrations done by W.W. Denslow. Dorothy has her pig tails, just like how she looked in the illustrations and how Judy Garland looked in the movie, and she even has her powder blue dress and white apron. The only thing I did that's part of my own designing Dorothy was making her brown hair a bit darker. If you look at the Scarecrow in the book illustrations, he definitely looks like how you see Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow in the film, meaning the costume, as well as the colors in his costume, such as dark green, black, and brown. How I design the Scarecrow was changing the colors of his costume by making his shirt red, pants in teal, and give him pair of black boots. I still kept his hat black. Designing the Tin Man was simple, because he is basically a man made out of tin, but of course, simple was by drawing him as how I would he look in my animation design. For the Cowardly Lion, it was very important to draw him like what a real lion should look like, instead of having to draw a man in a lion suit, just like how you see Bert Lahr as the Lion in the MGM movie, but you can't help thinking that he's adorable, which I think that's the part of his character. However, I didn't want to make him look like Simba from Disney's The Lion King (1994). If you look closely to the image of the drawing, I used mix of black and orange outlines, during the clean-up drawing section; the orange outlines were for matching the gold yellow color of his fur, and the black was for his brown mane. And Toto the dog, he's a Carin Terrier in the book and the film, played by Terry.
So, that's The Wizard of Oz fan art drawing, and if you would like to check out and read the official topic from 2019, you can find the reading post in the link down below. Of course, if you have any requests that you would like me to illustrate directly from The Wizard of Oz story, please let me know in the comments. I haven't done any more drawings, nor designing other characters, but if you would like to see more drawings, leave me a comment, please!
To let you all know, I'm going to be taking a break on doing any Watercolor of the Month posts. The reason why is because I think this year is when I'll be starting to get more requests by followers, which it has been going on since the beginning of this year, even working on drawing projects for my pen pal, Andrew Sateriale of Andrew's Corner. So, in order to keep the job easier for me without stress, I'll just stop reposting any of my watercolor drawings for Watercolor of the Months and take a break. But don't worry, it's not the end for Watercolor of the Month posts. Whenever there's a point that I'm ready to go back and do the 61st Watercolor of the Month, I'll let you all know. I am looking forward to sharing more artwork and reading posts, coming up in both March and April. March will a ballet-themed month with three upcoming ballet drawings I'll be share soon, and plus, it'll be the five-year anniversary for The Autistic Animator's Desk this Saturday on March 2nd. April is Autism Acceptance Month, and I will be doing three reading articles in celebrating autism: one will be on autism and mental health, and the other two will be reviewing on one TV episode and a film documentary, so that'll be very exciting!
Thank you so much for your amazing support you have been given me and this blog over five years, and it has been an incredible experience. If you would like to be a subscriber to this blog, please feel free to subscribe here on The Autistic Animator's Desk. You can follow me on Instagram @emmypflugh and Facebook @EmmyPflugh, and I have my YouTube channel, where I post videos on my rough animation tests.
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