"My Favorite Artists" Series Blog #12: thegeekcanpaint

Welcome back to another feature in my "Favorite Artists" Series. Today's featured artist is Keith James, aka DeviantArt user, "thegeekcanpaint". Let me tell you...."the geek CAN paint"!!!! haha Seriously, his work is amazing!  Mr. James is a traditional artist/illustrator residing in Saint Paul, Minnesota. What drew me to Keith's work was his extraordinary Harry Potter fan art! Anyone who knows me, knows my obsession with Harry Potter!!!  Let's now take a look at that fantastic artwork!!!

I can't recall which drawing of Keith's first caught my attention but I can tell which one's my favorite! It's this extremely detailed drawing of Professor Dumbledore's office from "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". The amount of detail put into this drawing had me staring at it for hours just looking at all this picture had to offer. In the drawing, you can see the sorting hat on a shelf behind the Headmaster's desk, Fawkes' stand above his recently ignited ashes, a tiny copy of "Tales of Beedle the Bard" (drawn to look like the special edition) and even a small bowl of Dumbledore's favorite candy, (lemon drops) on his desk. What's really amazing about this drawing, is that Keith also added a few "special" items. Items like, the Green Lantern and ring (located on the far left of the drawing), a lightsaber, the lamp from Aladdin, a golden ticket form "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and a bunch more!!!  I mean, this is probably one of the best fanart drawings I have ever seen in my LIFE!!! It's spectacular!!!

"Dumbledore's Office"
photo credit: Keith James 

Poor Ron!
photo credit: Keith James

Another favorite drawing of mine, created by the super talented, Keith James is the picture of Ron burping up slugs from Chapter 7 in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". The angle is quite interesting and the characters are perfectly represented. Hermione, with her big teeth and hair. Harry and his dark messy hair and large round glasses and poor Ron lookin' super ill from the slugs. LOL Strangely enough, that isn't even MY favorite part of the drawing. My favorite part is all of the Hogwarts House banners in the background. I don't know what it is but I love anything to do with showcasing the Houses of Hogwarts!!! *Fun Fact: As determined by Pottermore, I am a proud member of Ravenclaw House ;)*

My Favorite Artists Blog #4

Today's blog is on artist, Daniel Kordek from Poland who uses the username, daekazu on Deviantart. He has a HUGE list of deviations (over 500) ranging from "Harry Potter", "Disney Princesses" to "The Hunger Games" and soooo many more. I'm going to be completely honest here...when I first started "watching" daekazu on DeviantArt, I thought he was a girl. Apparently so have a lot of others since he posted a DeviantID with arrows pointing at himself, saying "me". haha I don't really know why I assumed he was a girl. Going by his style and choice of subject, maybe? I don't really care because he is an EXTREMELY talented artist!

I can't be sure of the first piece of art of Daniel's that I saw but it may have been this drawing of some of the Disney Princesses. I am a HUGE Disney Princess fan, so I would have come across this one at some point because it is so bright and colorful.

Disney Princesses by daekazu

In his earlier work, such as this one, all of his subjects kind of have the same face. In his later work, he keeps his style but changes it a little to reflect an almost "realistic" style. Take a look at this little "series" Daniel has where near Valentine's Day, he posts these separate pages of a bunch of couples in different fandoms and series. There is literally EVERY couple imaginable, from Jasmine and Aladdin to Rose and Jack from Titanic. Looking at the top left image, you can see he started with more of a cartoonish style to now, (bottom right) he has more realism while keeping his personal style. There is more shading and depth to his drawings. Very beautiful.

"Valentine Couples"
photo credit: daekazu.deviantart.com 

Snow Whites
photo credit: daekazu.deviantart.com

One of my favorite drawings is Daniel's "Snow White" drawings. He drew it around the time when both, "Snow White and the Huntsman" and "Mirror Mirror" were coming out and on one side, he drew Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart's versions of the "Queen" and "Snow White" and on the other side, he drew Julia Roberts and Lily Collins' version while both are in the costumes from the Disney version. Three different versions of Snow White, in one drawing! It's such a great idea for a drawing. What I really like about it, is each costume is the same concept but looking closely, you can see slight differences such as the hair, the collars and each Queen's jewel.

Another fantastic idea drawing done by daekazu, is this "Batman and Catwoman" piece. The drawing is split down the middle with the left side being the Michelle Pfeiffer/Michael Keaton version and on the right is the Anne Hathaway/Christian Bale version. Another very interesting concept. This drawing shows perfectly the style of Daniel Kordek that I love. It has a painterly look to it and drawn in his personal style while still being able to clearly see Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway.

"Two Bats and Cats"
photo credit: daekazu.deviantart.com

Favorite Artists Blog #3

Here we are again! Another artist who inspires me. Today's blog is about another DeviantArt artist from the U.K., named Emma (username: Catching-Smoke). Emma is a traditional artist using pencils for sketching and I believe she colors some of her sketches digitally.

Emma's "Tonks" drawing

I was first attracted to Emma's work when I was searching for "Nymphadora Tonks" fanart on DeviantArt and came across this drawing. She drew Tonks sitting down, smoking a cigarette. Not only did I think it was a cool drawing of Nymphadora but also, I LOVED the way Emma drew the folds in her clothing. I know that sounds really weird but I'm totally serious! I have soooo much trouble when it comes to drawing natural looking folds but here I sat, looking at this amazing piece of art that looked like it was drawn effortlessly. I was completely envious of her work and hit that "watch" button immediately!


Most of Emma's work is fanart of "Harry Potter" and some of "The Hunger Games",  which is awesome since I love both series! ;) Her drawings are mainly sketches but they look so flawless.  Take, for instance, this drawing of Ron and Hermione from "Harry Potter". If you look closely, you can see a few sketch lines around the edges but each line is blocked in with purpose. She always draws hair with perfection. I just want to latch on to her talent and never let go!!! (Just like Hermione is latching on to Ron, hehe)

"Ron" and "Hermione" from "Harry Potter" drawn by Emma

There are a few "character sheets" that Emma drew of characters from the Harry Potter series and also Johanna Mason from "The Hunger Games". My favorites are the "Golden Trio" from Harry Potter. Each character sheet is drawn with different expressions and movement that you can actually tell the character's personality based on her drawings.

"The Golden Trio" Hermione, Harry and Ron character sketches drawn by Emma