Personal Totem

to·tem

ˈtōdəm/

noun

noun: totem; plural noun: totems

1. a natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.

Even though you started this project tracing Northwest Coast indigenous animal symbols, you are not to incorporate them into your own personal totem. We must be careful not to appropriate cultural symbols. However, please do consider how indigenous groups have simplified and symbolized the image of the animal and the cultural significance of the animals to them. You are welcome to be inspired by the indigenous symbols, but careful not to copy for your own.

For your personal totem, you are to select 3 or more animals that represent something about you and your family. Consider how the animal you select is meaningful to you (it doesn't have to be the native meaning, it should be your own- or a blend of two).

Simplify the lines and shapes to break it down to the most basic elements of that animal. Combine the three animals in a way so they work together symbolically and visually.

You can/should find examples of your animals to have visual reference. You may want to find examples from indigenous groups as inspiration, but not to copy. Draw your personal totem with Illustrator. You can use different types of line, colours, fill swatches. 

Spirit Animal Work Period

Work on tracing your First Nations spirit animal today. 

• Try to move one of your over lapping shapes to the bottom and on top:
• Click on the shape with the SELECT tool/ black arrow from the tool bar (left side),
• Select OBJECT from the top pop down menus
• Arrange- front, backwards or to back…

Try to add some colour today. Here is the fill (white square) and stroke (black square) colour selectors on your tool bar. If you click on it 1x, a colour picker window will appear. But you will need to click on the shape you want to colour first before you select your colour. You will notice the black box underneath the colour selector. That is the stroke colour selection tool. If you want the stroke to be a specific colour, you need to click on it so it appears over top of the fill colour box.

If you finish your drawing, you can start another one. One of your choice.

Post your progress to your blog.

To save your illustrator work:

• First  FILE- SAVE AS your drawing as an Adobe Illustrator file ( "yourtitle.AI")
• Then FILE- EXPORT -for Web & Devices
• Save as a PNG or JPG.
• Then up load it to your blog.  Click on the image icon and Browse for your image in your student folder. 

I want to see how you are doing.