For this project, I found a number of images I wanted to use as the basis for my composition. I roughed them out as a collage using the masking tool, then used those images as a guide for my vector drawing. I composed this image as an 11 by 17 at 300 dpi. Since it was a vector image, it was relatively easy to resize to the parameters of the assignment. I made sure to group the vectors that I wanted to resize the same (e.g. all the soap or the entire praying mantis), then I was able to select all of the impacted ones and resize them together.
I really like how it came together. I’ve been wanting to make something to hang in one of the restrooms in my house for a while and thought it would be funny to make some poster art about hand washing. I settled on a praying mantis, because they always look like they’re holding out their hands and because I enjoyed the absurdity of the image in my mind. I dabbled with a couple different versions of the praying mantis and struggled a little with the coloring of the ends of its forelegs. This particular mantis has reddish forelegs, so it looked like it was dripping blood. This added to the dark humor of the image (and made the hand washing joke a little more gruesome), but wasn’t quite what I was going for. I ended up tweaking the color so it’s a little bit more neutral and in line with the other colors in the palette.
