My House Design

The Sketch Process

For this assignment, we were supposed to sketch a tree, bird, house, or flower twenty different ways. You really had to think outside the box on this one! Regarding my first house, I drew a simplistic cartoon house. After that, I drew a two-story home. The third, I made a tent because some people love the outdoors and practically live in tents. Then, I drew an apartment building and a hut. The hut ended up being my favorite (or most unique) so I decided to put that into Illustrator. I also drew a castle, cottage, log house, and RV. A ton of people live life on the road in their RV! Then I drew a one-story motel (because I stayed in one for a soccer tournament one time). Next came the teepee, cave, and of course, the bird house. My sister made a bird house a while ago, so I thought I'd try and draw that. I made a church, firehouse, one-room cottage, and igloo. Who would have ever thought of an igloo? Finally, I sketched a lighthouse, doghouse, and cathouse. I actually never thought in the first place that I would somehow magically come up with twenty houses to draw. It was quite a challenge!

Adobe Illustrator Design

As I said earlier, I chose the hut to re-create in Adobe Illustrator. At first, I chose to have no sky or round but just simply made the hut using the shaper tool. The door was probably one of the hardest challenges. Then, I actually decided to have a sky and ground to make it look more realistic and so I chose the "send to back" feature for the layers. For a while, I played around with sky colors to really capture the scene. I thought that the sky looked to plain and dull. So, to fix this, I added the sun and clouds, which didn't end up being overly difficult. Finally, I realized that the ground was a bunch of empty space, so I added steps leading up to the hut where the visitors are greeted with a welcome sign. I was finished! Regarding my colors used, I tried to make it more dull and old-looking, almost as if tribes had been living in it for hundreds of years. Also, the sky I decided wasn't going to be too bright in order to capture the old look as well. Yet, I still wanted visitors (or viewers) to feel welcome, so I added a welcome mat and sun to show that. 

My Opinion?

I thought that my sketches turned out to be quite alright! Definitely better than I thought I could ever do. Plus, I considered it a challenge to think of twenty different houses to make. Of course, I liked certain sketches over others, such as the hut, tent, igloo, and castle. Probably because they were unique. Anyway, when it came to Illustrator, I sort of wished I could have made a better roof for the hut. Originally, I was going to try to make it straw-looking, but I didn't necessarily know how to add textures. It still resulted in a good design though! I can for sure say that I've learned much more about Adobe Illustrator and what you can do with it, so I will always try to keep improving my designs.