Find Your Voice Week Five

In this week's lesson I explored my "design style." The all encompassing style component of my stories and art. The end-of-lesson prompt I chose encouraged me to find a project that has a style I really admire and would like to emulate. I was then to create a project of my own using the admired project as inspiration. When completed, I was to sit back and take a look at similarities and differences between the projects.

Lately I've been in love with the minimalistic and geometric trends that I've been seeing on Etsy, in home improvement magazines and in clothing (think color block clothes). I kind of use minimalism in some of my stories and creations, but it's typically in a cute and cartoon-like fashion, and not in the sleek, modern way that I so admire. I would love to develop some minimalistic drawings of my own, but those clean, simple designs are harder to create than you would think!

There are a lot of big brands that use minimalism in their design. One of my favorites is Lacoste. You know, that iconic little alligator.

 

So, I decided to try to draw my own minimalistic animal. One of my favorite animals right now is the fox, so I decided to put my focus on foxes. I first drew a fox like I normally would, all fuzzy and full of motion. Then I slowly whittled away at it until I reached a point at which I no longer felt comfortable whittling any more. I tried to add some geometric elements in as well.

Here is the evolution of my minimalistic fox. It was hard for me to ignore all the little furry lines I wanted to add in, but in the end, I managed. I like how the little guy turned out, I even like the triangular patterns I added to the tip of his tail and legs (I was unsure of them at first). He still definitely seems a little more "free" than the Lacoste gator, but I guess that makes the drawing a little more "me".

Now I'm off to use my new minimalistic fox drawing to make a secret, surprise project for a friend! More info will be posted later.

UPDATED 7/29/13:

Here is the project I created using my drawing. It's a little wooden pendant that I hand cut and painted and then added to a necklace for my friend, Lauren, for her birthday.