Gwendy's Q n A may be found here:
Intro: this one!
Part 1: 2 messages down
Parts 2 onwards: here
Gwendy's new H/H fanart: here

PK Spotlight on
Gwendy

She who must be named each time we borrow her art, such as the ones below. Click on the avatar to see the full-sized art.

If you dream of Harry Potter characters in your sleep and it's in anime style, chances are you're channeling Gwendy.

Gwendy's one of the best-regarded HP fanartists. Her body of work has grown so substantial and popular that she has become practically a fixture of fandom. Her mostly shippy drawings could be found gracing many fansites, online galleries, fic archives and forums. Legions of fans have borrowed her manga-inspired renderings of Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, Ginny and Draco and used them as avatar, sig image or forum photo. Sadly, many have taken her art with abandon, which is how things spread so quickly in cyberspace and how works of genuine creativity are validated at the same time.



Gwendy's universal appeal is both enduring and refreshing given the long and often bitter shipping wars. Although her works are mainly romantic in category and therefore feature one pair or another, her artistry seems to transcend ship and genre to touch fans in terms of what unites them instead of what divides them – and that is their love of things Harry Potter.

It's no surprise her website, Quills n Spills (Q n S), is among the most visited HP sites and her art among the most often borrowed by fans. Portkey has proudly hosted her site since 2003. As a tiny gauge of Q n S's popularity, some 65 PK'ers** currently display her work for their avatars, sig images or forum photo. Another 44 have named Quills n Spills among their "other fandom haunts" while 32 members' sigs currently display this Faithfuls" banner that features Gwendy's "No Matter What They Say" illustration.







The above figures don't include PK'ers who've borrowed her work in the past, or who continue to display her art but haven't put her name in their forum sigs.

Artists, authors, bloggers and lurkers of all ships and disguises gush about her art, using words like beautiful, amazing, and fantabulous to describe it. She tops many recommendation lists such as this one made in Feb 2007. Take note of the comments made by rjade829 and mirtilla87, who both have PK artist accounts themselves.

rjade829: I added 9 new arts to my HP fan art rec list... I hadn't updated it since last June.

mirtilla87: I forgot to add that Gwendy's site doesn't exist anymore quillsnspills.portkey.org so those links don't work either. *sobs* that was one of my fav. H/Hr sites.

Gwendy's consistently named in "fave fanart?" topics. PK Mod Accio Harry! counts Gwen among her top three fave artists after having vetted 6,000 artworks for her HMS Harmony MySpace page. (We hope Accio Harry's eyes remain okay after looking at all that art! )

QUOTE(Accio Harry! @ Mar 12 2007, 03:54 AM)

I consider myself quite the expert when it comes to H/Hr art. Since I started my Harmony myspace last month, I have been though no less than 6000 pics/drawings/manips/icon/sigs/avvies. I am talkin a LOT of H/Hr.

If you want to see some good stuff, go to:

http://www.myspace.com/hmsharmony

Also, imo, I'd say the best are Stefy (absolutely beautiful), Yethro (who draws H/Hr as they appear in the movies) and the wonderful Gwendy (who has the most pics on my myspace page)!

Most tellingly, one OBHWF shipper agrees,

QUOTE(Crumpet @ Jul 19 2005, 02:19 AM)

... I know you have some amazing artist's on your ship (Gwendy is one of my top three Fan Artists of all time, and I'm not even on your ship); ...

Gwendy's made considerable impact to say the least. Her drawings, done mainly in that quirky style of Japanese comics / cartoon, have inspired many fanarts and tribute videos and not a few fanfics. More than a few people have joined or switched ships after experiencing her art. Complained one touched fan after seeing Gwendy's Book 6-era layout: “I blame Gwendy ... because her site's now so angsty. It's her fault I'm so angsty.”

For all her popularity, the fandom nearly lost Gwendy due to a series of events and mistaken impressions. First, she found the 6th HP book and JKR's ensuing interview extremely disappointing. But more than anything, it was her beloved grandfather's death in mid-2006 that drove her to an artistic slump, leading her to leave Quills n Spills idle. She posted a heartfelt letter on her site to tell her fans about her loss and grief, then surfaced only a year later to share brief updates about her real life.

Unfortunately too much spam forced her to close her various email addresses, effectively cutting herself off from the fandom over time. In 2008, she lost access to PK's server and to her corresponding email addresses as well. She tried contacting PK techies but her message didn't reach them. PK kept her site online all this time until it mysteriously went completely offline sometime between October 2008 and January 2009. Gwendy kinda assumed this was a deliberate decision by PK's techies due to her lack of updates.

Sometime before or after this, she lost her personal copies of her art when her hard drive crashed. Naturally she got panic attacks, but eventually took all these as signs that she should move on from the fandom. Little did she know that many people were missing her site as could be seen here.

In mid-January 2009, some PK staff members noticed her site's unexplained disappearance. PK's general policy is to keep all files whether in use or not, so these staffers figured Q n S vanished due to technical issues or Gwendy had taken it down herself. Staff figured there'd be no harm in asking Gwendy. They did all they could to find her, messaging her through the forums then googling for any trace of her. They sent messages each time they found an email address she had used. After seven "shots in the dark" messages sent from January to March, one such email finally landed in her inbox in late March.

After sorting out that she hadn't taken down Quills n Spills herself, PK staff swiftly worked to retrieve backups of her files, reopen her site and restore Gwendy to her rightful place here among her grateful fans. By happy coincidence, PK was also weeks-deep in this Spotlight project; hence its project team wasted no time in asking Gwendy to be one of the first three interviewees.

Let's now consider ourselves privileged to have touched base with her again. In this interview, she talks about why she went on hiatus, what she did in the meantime, how she has now semi-returned to the fandom and what we could look forward to. She also talks about her family, work, art, hopes, dreams, projects, raves, pets and pet peeves. For this first issue of our e-zine, PK shines the Spotlight on Gwendy, fanartist extraordinaire.


Let's tell her how much we've missed her.



**PK-ers who presently display Gwendy's work for their avatars, sigs or forum photos include:
4 eva lupins, abhi_shake, AccioWand, Aundielen, blake_burna, BL_Paul, Carlo, CineGeek, CommonWelshGreen, Dani Rose, Danny2004, Diamond, DinzLuvsHHr, Dragoncateliz, dreamfish, Eka, Erika, FuzzyFurball, Goddess Of Imaginary Light, Gryffindor-Sword, gti88, H+Hr, H/Hr Infinity, Harmony-oholic, harryloveshermione1999, Harry85, Harry love Hermione, hermione potter 14, Hermione's hero, hermionepotter2005, hhrlover, Hikaru, hoki_poki_choki_chip, hpgirl476, hpworld, husker_fan_2006, karenkate kitty, Kayters, Lands, Larissa Radcliffe, Linkinchick89, littledufffan, LUciana7, Luna R Weasley, manuel23_ve, Maria, moogle, Naeryn, nonpareil, Nymphe, piriya30, PotterBandFreak, prncssSra1881, Pumpkin Pickin' Veela, sabriel, scythe_dark7th, Shorty101, stu14688, Syrus, TheHarryinMe, ThePickle, trailmix, Wandless110 and WinkySmiles


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Notes and Requests from the PK Spotlight project team:
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• We'd be posting this interview in several parts, 10 for the structured Q & A and perhaps some extras. We're thinking of posting 1-2 parts a week.
  
  
• Let's maximize our board software's interactive features! Feel free to post your reactions and follow-up questions for Gwendy after each Q n A installment. One-liners and one-worders are okay! We'd only delete spam, flames or posts completely unrelated to Gwendy.
  
  
• Gwendy's return deserves to be treated as a big event. To spread the word, please feel free to copy the following in your blogs. We'd also post more adverts later which you could copy onto your fics' author notes and forum profile sigs.
  
  
  CODE
  HP fan artist Gwendy's back after a two-year absence!  Read her interview here: http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?act=findpost&pid=415266
  
  
  
• Gwendy's busy with real life developments at the moment, hence it might take her some time to reply to any follow up questions. She isn't actually logging in here to post these Q n A bits. Rather, we're using our admin magic to post them through her account (without invading her privacy). But we staff would like to assure you that she appreciates every constructive feedback she gets, so let's keep them coming!
  
  
• We're 100% confident that we've talked to the same Gwendy who's very well known for her fanart. Everything we know about artist!Gwendy matches interviewee!Gwendy, from their pictures, speech patterns, languages spoken, family info, trivia details, and familiarity with her body of work. More importantly, we sought out interviewee!Gwendy; she didn't come to us uninvited to present herself as artist!Gwendy.
  
  
• Do NOT copy big chunks of this interview outside Portkey. We'd allow you to quote up to 2 lines per installment only. See guys, we've spent two months looking for Gwendy and another two months conducting and editing this interview. All done while talking to techies about her site's technical problems and to our layout team to prepare new layouts that borrow her art. Please respect the hard work we've put behind this and our intention for this to be read exclusively here in PK! We've disabled the "print this topic" and "download this topic" options for these reasons.
  
  
• If you'd like to see more Spotlight issues, please consider signing up here. Remember, you or your fav writer / artist / reader / reviewer / forumer / lurker could be featured in our future interviews!

Let's get Gwendy's show on the road! We're gonna display Gwendy's first Q n A installment for everyone to see. However, future Q n A bits would only be made available to people who log in PK's forums. Deal or deal!

Each part would include an avatar she had made. Click on the avatar to see her full-sized sketch.


- gal-texter on behalf of PK and Spotlight staff

Note by Spotlight Team:
Before we gave Gwen a long questionnaire, we asked her, "How much prying could you stand?"

She replied, "You'd know when I say 'Next question please' but you can try me. Haha! Honestly, pry all you want but if I say 'Next question please' , I'd mean it. Hehe."

Much to our delight, she replied "Next question, please" only a few times.

We're using a board trick to post Gwendy's replies to the questions we had emailed to her months ago.

Part 1 of 10
Beginnings As An Artist
Click on the avatar to see its full-sized version.


Spotlight team: How’d you learn to draw?

Gwendy: I think drawing's already in my bloodline. My dad's a great artist but he’s more on the architectural side. His brother, my uncle, is pure artist, who dabbles in nearly every medium -- painting, charcoal, you name it, though currently, his obsession is bonsai. So's my mom, though she doesn't really make a hobby out of it. And I don't know exactly when I learned. Mom said I started the moment they put a crayon in my hand.


S: How long have you been drawing?

G: Per my mom, since I was one and a half. She still has my very first scribble at the back of her old cooking book.


S: How old were you when first drew what could be considered 'art' and not just doodling?

G: Art is subjective. I was three when I drew my first human. Stick figure for sure, but it was art to me then hehe.


S: What medium did you use to begin with?

G: Crayon for the very first time. Pencil for the next.


S: What were your inspirations for your earliest drawings?

G: Seriously? My mom. My first drawing apparently was an attempt to draw her. It came out a blob of nothingness. Haha!


S: What kind of drawings did you progress to after that and how fast?

G: From blobs, I [progressed to sketching] stick people. Then from stick people, I gave them flesh on the feel, faces and flesh on the hands until I finally gave them flesh. It was pretty fast I suppose. Made my first fleshed human by age 5 or 6.


S: What kind of art did you take to initially?

G: The usual doodles. And mostly farm art, with the rice paddies, the coconuts, the straw huts and the sun smiling over the mountain. So that's mostly scenery I suppose.


S: Which artists were your earliest influences?

G: To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure, but basing on the first animes I ever watched at age 7 (that would be Sailormoon and Dragonball), the earliest influences would be Naoko Takeuchi & Akira Toriyama. Oh! Don't count out Walt Disney! I grew up watching [his work].


S: When did you first dream of becoming a cartoonist?

S: When I was in sixth grade, about the time Ghost Fighter (aka Yu Yu Hakusho) began making waves in the Philippines. I was so inspired by the storyline, I got a whole list of my own characters. It was quite similar to GF/YYH but along the line, I developed my own story. Think of it as my first fananime hehe.


S: Why a cartoonist and not some other art form?

G: I grew up watching cartoons. I ain't stopping now. You grow up with it, you stick with it. But I pretty much dabble with painting if I have the materials, though not as much because the materials are so expensive! I also like sculpting, but only clays. I do charcoal sometimes, and oil pastel as well. This one, I particularly like doing.


S: Did you go through any formal training early or later on?

G: Later, but I wouldn't really call it formal. That would be too expensive, but my high school principal saw potential in me and had me enrolled in a free one-month summer workshop. That's where I had my first hand at painting, oil pastel and other mediums.


S: How did your family treat your early dabblings?

G: My mom was particularly proud. When I was a kid, she'd show me off in her office and have me draw on papers all day long in front of her officemates. She also lets me draw with MS Paint. I made my first MS Paint drawing in 3rd grade, and yes, it was with a mouse.


S: What did you and/or your family do to help you realize your artistic potential?

G: My mom encouraged me to draw as a kid. She used to draw princesses for me and I used to copy them. I guess you can call it my first fanart. She also encouraged me to join contests, which I always refused because I hated losing haha! I didn't join a contest though until my college years. Won two years in a row.


S: Did you seek to go to art school?

G: Oh, very much. But...next question. Haha.


S: Did anyone encourage you to pursue an artistic vocation?

G: Honestly, no. Not even my mom (that's all I'll say on that matter). It was the people online who encouraged me, the fans of my fanart. I'm serious.


S: Did you get early tutoring from a professional artist?

G: Nope. Wish I did though.



Note from Spotlight team on June 5: Part 2's here.


This interview's brought to you by Portkey's Spotlight team under these terms. Feel free to post (polite) comments and follow-up questions. Look at it as a way of thanking our interviewees for their contributions to the fandom.

To spread the word about this interview, please copy this bit:

CODE

HP fan artist Gwendy's back after a long absence!  Read her interview here: http://talk.portkey.org/index.php?act=findpost&pid=415266

We'd also like to get YOUR questions for our next interviewee, PK writer BB Ruth!


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OMG! I can't believe you guys found Gwendy! I have really missed her work. It was always so inspirational. That dancing pic she drew- that WAS for Dirty Dancing! I won her fanfic contest and she drew me three pictures of my choosing.

I think a lot of people are going to be ecstatic that she's coming back, when she has time. I'm so happy for her that she's been able to do a comic and write a novel.

We did some admin magic to produce Heaven and Gwendy's posts above without logging into their accounts. They've originally said all those those words by PM and email respectively.

We've showed Heaven an advance copy of our full interview (that's one perk of being part of PK or Spotlight staff). Gwendy talks more about her orig art and fiction in upcoming Q n A installments.

- Pen on behalf of Spotlight staff

OMG it is so good to have Gwendy back to portkey. She was missed by those who loved her work. It is so good to finally have her back where she belongs Portkey. I hope that she dose more drawing for us soon.

I love it.

It's nice to see stuff like this that really presents our community and it's members!

I have a confession to make. I have never been that 'big' on fanart, and have only now just realised that all those D/G pictures I have been admiring over the years are credited to Gwendy, here. That is an amazing thing, and I'm very sorry I did not take more interest earlier to truly show my appreciation for all the effort you have made in bringing our favourite pairings to life.

I'm sure everyone would agree with me that your artwork really is spectacular and captures exactly the essence of the romances we can only hope to create through words.

It's good to have you back, and I hope we may see more from you in the future.

Gwendy emailed us twice yesterday to tell us more about her RL developments ... AND to show us one of her brand new H/H fanart! Let's hope she finds time soon to post it in her Q n S site. If not, we could probably atttach it in future installments of her Q n A -- which we'd fix so that people would need to log in to read them. If any of you readers doubted that we were talking to artist!Gwendy, this new fanart oughta assure you.

We'd have to clear with Gwen if we could tell you about those RL news; or perhaps she could tell you herself. The more newyn and I talk to her about her RL, the more we admire her as a person, daughter, sister and granddaughter. See, all three of us live in the same country, therefore newyn and I could better grasp the magnitude of what she's doing for her parents and siblings.

It's exciting to be learning all about such a fantastic artist as Gwendy - truly inspiring!

gal-texter here doing more admin magic to reproduce part of jediyoda's PM to me yesterday after I mentioned to her, "Luckily we got hold of Gwendy (super popular fanartist). Did you know that Gwendy's a Pinoy too?" Pinoy = Tagalog slang for Filipino. Translated some parts below from Tagalog:

I love Gwen's artworks but I didnt know that she is pinoy. Thats so nice to know... that there are plenty of pinoys who are Harry and hermione shippers. I used to visit Pinoy Hogwarts or something and most pinoys there are on the canon side.

gal-texter here doing more admin magic to reproduce something BB Ruth PM'd to me today. This would interest both Gwen and the Spotlight team. Some parts below translated from Tagalog:


I read Gwendy's interview (the first part). I should drop Rene a note to let him know he did an excellent job on that. And Gwendy too - amazing and it blows me away how talented she is. I'm not into fan art but she is really good. She's a great pick for the 1st issue of PK spotlight.

So ... you tracked her down after all this time - I'm thinking it's like you guys are detectives.

I then told her briefly about what Gwendy's done for her family during her fandom hiatus, so BB Ruth said the following in a separate PM. All would be revealed in future Q n A installments. - gal-texter

Gwendy is definitely admirable for what she is doing for her siblings. And to be able to do what she does for fandom even more.

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Click here to read Part 2 of Gwen's Q&A! All future installments would be posted there.

We'd also be trying some new things with our next issue (where we interview another person). Watch this forum for announcements.

To my project teammates: we've moved our Staff Room down the board's main page.