Part 2: At this point I already felt loose and some of the animals I picked were a challenge to make them feel individual and I was thinking about a bunch of animated films too during this half. I would be squinting my eyes to get a read of the shapes but also without squinting just looking at the screen and I would try relaxing my gaze to get the base shapes of what constructed these animals. It blew my mind that I feel like artists actually have wizard eyes. We literally perceive reality differently and my point in stating that is looking at these animals I’ve seen before but never examined what made them look like the way they do. Shapes are powerful and I was unaware of their power. I just have to mention this scene from Inside out with Sadness and Bing Bong and Joy going into that white room that breaks them down into their base primitive shapes. Like I said in part 1, I keep the phrase K.I.S.S. with Stan’s voice saying out the abbreviation “keep it simple stupid”. I was outside today and I was looking at the grass, i couldn’t help but notice the negative and positive shapes. What cutout 2d shape their silhouette was. Then I backed up and it’s so trippy yet so so beautiful how interconnected drawing and reality are. Our eyes are cameras and our view is the scene or composition and we have a wide angled view but can compose what you see in front of you in a different frame composition. I have no art friends in irl so this community helps. I mean I’m in class right now talking about my experience from this assignment haha. Being alone for years on this art journey it helps me just to speak my mind share be honest and have that ambitious attitude to try our best and learn the skills to make the art we want to make even if we don’t know what that looks like yet. Have a great day everyone! After looking at the critique video I realized I’m so full of myself but I’m keeping it light hearted. I really thought I was doing magic. I still am but I could have approached this differently. Big medium small, simple shapes, wholes shapes no lines representing edges. Sorry everyone but this is only me reading so I will try again with another animal!!

Part 1: apologies but I’m submitting in two parts since I had too many photos for this assignment. I loosened up the more animals I did. I can’t remember when but somewhere during this journey I had a breakthrough of misconceived notions of what’s this is all about and what it is to be creative. I was thinking of many different animated films that use shape language, what shapes made something feel cute, angry, sad, etc. I experienced what it meant to not copy the reference but build from it, design and accentuate already existing shapes in the form of any animal. I keep in mind K.I.S.S. When thinking about circles triangle and square then account for organic shapes. As I drew more animals I brainstormed more ideas on one page and I even applied the same mindset here for this assignment to a red onion I had one night. I remember crying cutting the onion and my sister asked why I was crying. I said that the onion told me a sad story and bam just like that I had to draw the onion reading some sad story. It’s so weird yet so calming not knowing how or where imaginative ideas come from. I had an epiphany that that’s it! Style is not something I have to try to do, it’s what my drawings naturally feel like. I acknowledge there is a skill gap in what I imagine I can create and what I’ve been able to do so far, but even then my drawings now have a familiar reoccurring flow, just the feeling of the lines, the energy. At this point I’m just talking to myself going over how I felt haha, it’s important as an artist we are our own #1 fan regardless of how our work looks. This is the magic that I feel can keep me dedicated to drawing for life. The feelings I felt during this assignment was peaceful and fun even tho it was difficult.

Some of these are over the 10 shapes.

Well as much as I don't like this type of drawing, I see why its a good exercise for many reasons.

First crack L1. Found it particularly difficult to choose shapes for the big undistinguished blob of the hippo. Also difficult to limit to under 10 shapes for the bull.

My level 1 assigment!

My Level 2's. I found roosters the best looking, beetles the easiest and hippos the funniest.

My level ones. Hippo took me 3 tries and giraffe 2. The last five were left handed. It was harder to get smooth lines with the left but they're getting better. Images all from Unsplash (aside from the first 3).

Way harder than i thought, especially for level 2. I started off with level 1 and expanded to level 2 from there. I really didn't want to refer to the demo even though i was tempted to, had to least try it myself first. I thought the rooster was the simplest, followed by hippo then buffalo. Part of me questioned if i was doing it right and feared they were all too similar, or if the shapes i was using was too safe and needed to be more organic. I ended up trying a fox, bird, and flamingo too.

Man these looks simple but it's not easy the tiger and bear were more complicated

The hippo felt really tricky to me, but the buffalo and the rooster were pretty fun! I wasn't sure how to do something like the bison's horns or rooster's hair with "simple shapes," but I did my best! I also tried to do a few other random animals just to practice the concept a bit more.

Level one assignments looking for 5 to 10 more for rest of assignment

It’s easy to get lost in the details, and/or rush things. Had fun though!

Learned a lot from this one! At first, I sketched different animals to see if I liked their shape design. I really enjoyed how the dog turned out, so I played around with its shapes and proportions. With some of the other animals, I found myself simplifying them down to just the head shape, eyes, and nose... so there wasn't a lot left to play with without losing their "soul", it happened with the squirrel and frog.

started with the rooster and got the momentum going, then got stumped at the buffalo for some reason :v

Tried some shape experimenting aswell, the bearded dragon and rooster were very fun. Organic moose was difficult but I found a better composition when I tried to use more triangular and squareish shapes. Bearded dragon ref courtesy of @Max down below :) https://www.proko.com/s/HdYt

First attempt, I’ll watch the demo / critiques and try again