This exercise was done as part of the course Find Your Style: Five Exercises to Unlock Your Creative Identity by Andy J Pizza available on the Skillshare website. The exercise presented in this article is preceded by other exercises I presented in the article: Exercises to Unlock Your Creative Identity (part 1).
Exercise III: You on a plate
Exercise III involves rolling two dice invented by the teacher that include different themes on each of the six sides. Then, you have to mix the themes obtained to make illustrations. Personally, instead of crafting the dice as suggested, I used a site that shuffles values randomly and took the first three values from the two given theme lists. Then, drawing inspiration from the results of the second exercise, we create at least three illustrations that talk about subjects that affect our values or our subjects of interest.
The blue bear
For the first illustration, I had the themes “guilty pleasure” and “your past”. I love soft toys as an adult while they are usually for children. We collect them at home. We especially like Squishable and Palm Pals. Before knowing the Squishable company, I was already drawing round animals, a bit like their plushies. I immediately loved them when I discovered their plushies!
When I was a kid, I had a blue teddy bear which was less plump than the one in the illustration. To my recollection, it had been given to me by relatives when they returned from a trip with my parents. I don’t know why I remember this one so much. Maybe it was because it’s one of the first gifts I received from them (at least in my memory). Maybe because it was the first time I had been separated from my parents for so long. I stayed at members’ of my family whom I did not know very well and with whom I was very uncomfortable. I remember that they were not particularly caring people towards me, they even often made fun of me because I was missing my parents and brother. Receiving a token of affection after this unpleasant week was probably much appreciated by the highly sensitive young child that I was.
The family quilt
For the second illustration, I had the themes “current inspiration” and “family history”. Lately, I have been very interested in “visible mending” which consists of repairing worn clothes using a thread that is clearly visible instead of trying to hide the repair. It is a way of honoring the life of the garment. It is a practice that was done a lot in the past when resources were less available and a garment could be passed between several generations. It also reminds me of quilts that can be made from several fabric scraps and can also be passed down from generation to generation in a family.
I chose to make a quilt depicting a “family tree” that includes my partner, my daughter, and myself. The illustration is inspired by a tattoo my partner and I have. In 2020, we decided to get a tattoo to represent our union, instead of buying a ring. I explain its story a little more in the article Family Portrait. The tattoo has since changed as we made it take up more space by adding foliage and a small bud that represents our daughter.
I have often done family portraits [1|2|3|4] where my illustrations revolve a lot around family life. Family is very important to me. Being present and having a partner to team up with are priority goals in my life. I had two parents who were often absent when I was young (physically or emotionally). It is therefore very important to me that my daughter feels loved, surrounded and listened to. Also, my two parents did not get along, there was a lot of bickering between them. There were even situations of parental alienation that caused a lot of distance with one of my parents. It is for this reason that I have made visible mending in my quilt section.
Back to school
For the third illustration, I had the themes “copy yourself” and “slice of life”. I was inspired by another illustration, which I did in 2022, of my family taking a walk together. I still drew the characters in a natural environment. I have relatively the same haircut in both illustrations, but I rarely wear hair that way because mine is actually too short to do that. On the other hand, my daughter really has hair down to her lower back and I used to braid them everyday (now she wears them differently… a bit like the Disney princess Jasmine, but with more hair ties), because otherwise they get too tangled up. Finally, my artistic style has changed a little since then. I try to work on a style that I like, so each illustration evolves a little each time.
As a slice of life, I chose to represent my daughter and I returning from her school. At this time, she usually tells me stories of adventures that take place in her imaginary world. Last school year, the stories often revolved around slime, as we had played the game Slime Rancher which she really enjoys. In his story, we had several slimes including ‘Petit Peton’ who is a blue crystal slime (her invention) who is very fond of blue gems and eating. I usually do his voice. He doesn’t listen much, but he loves us a lot so he adopted us (and not the opposite hihihi). I also drew our luminous slime, which was called Lumi, and a plant slime, whose name I forgot. There were obviously many more, but I limited myself in the illustration. Also, we are cat people, because my daughter loves cats a lot, so we are always cat people in her stories. My daughter let me know that in fact, for her, the slimes were much smaller.
Exercise IV: Populate your world
In this exercise, I had to note similarities in my last three illustrations in order to create the beginning of a visual guide. I should normally do between three and nine illustrations based on what I wrote down. Since I also want to do other courses, I will apply what I noted during the exercises in other courses. I will possibly post a new article to follow up on this exercise in the future.
Here’s what I’ve noted so far:
- Make contour lines of similar thickness in the illustration.
- Interior lines should be thinner or of equal thickness.
- Some interior details do not require contour lines in order to simplify.
- An object should have a darker outline than its coloring.
- Black areas may have a lighter line.
- An object should have a paler light area depending on the direction of the light.
- On black and white, take blue to make light reflection.
- The artwork should have a slight paper texture.
- Make faces more ‘U’-shaped rather than oval.
- The eyes are made of an elongated oval with points of light.
- The figures have big colored cheeks.
I strongly recommend Andy Pizza’s course if you are looking to work on your style and create a guide for your style. Andy Pizza also does an inspirational podcast, Creative Pep Talk, for creative people where he gives great advice.