Now that @manders has received her swap package, I can post what I made. I was having so much fun with them and wanted to share!
The first thing I made was a drawing from the Hayao Miyazaki/ Studio Ghibli movie, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The main character is drawn in ink and colored with regular colored pencils. The background is watercolor pencils. The watercolor pencils were NOT behaving the way I wanted them to but the vague background seems to work anyway.
Picking the subject was easy once I had my theme as manders said this was her favorite Ghibli movie.
Ooo, I was just talking with my son about this movie. His favorite is Kiki’s Delivery Service. For his birthday we purchased a Studio Ghibli music book for clarinet.
I think the background is great, it emphasizes her swift flying. A blurry background, right? She has such an exuberant expression and the blue in her dress is spot on. Did you freehand all of it??