Abstraction with cows

For the second assignment, we kinda had to draw something, and strip it down to its bare skeletal features which define it as what it is. Basically its just abstraction and it sounds kind of complicated. an example of abstraction could be a drawing of a scientific calculator, then a normal calculator, then maybe a rectangular shape with only a screen and a button with the plus symbol on it.

So, for this assignment I wasnt very confident with my work, due to the fact that i cant really draw. Nevertheless, i managed to draw out my assignment of abstraction in my sketchbook and got it scanned.



As you can tell from the image above, the subject of my abstraction is the cow. This is actually my second draft? The first draft had many comments, however i kinda lost the file already due to the fact that my computer had some problems a few weeks ago. Anyway, the difference between the first and second draft was that in the first, i focused more on keeping the cow's horns as the identifiying factor. As for the second draft, i kept the the cow's udders instead.

This is mainly because most people told me that in the first draft, that they sometimes thought of it as a bull instead of a cow if not for BOTH the horns and the spots on the cow's hide. So i decided to keep the cow's udders instead of the horns. Also, for the abstraction process, i removed the spots on its hide in two steps rather than take it out straightaway in one step. Also, subtle things like the cowbell was taken out with other small details on the cow like facial features, and details on the cow's hoof.

In the end, i replaced the cow's body with that of basic geometrical shapes and removed the udders. At this point it was impossible to tell that it was a cow as it could represent any 4 legged animal.

Thus, the logo for abstraction that i chose for this assignment is the 4th drawing.



I selected this as the logo to represent the cow because the shape of the udders still tells me that its a cow, even after i removed the other details. Keeping some other part like the horns, would be ambiguous as some might see it as a bull or the spots, where some people might see it to be some other four-legged animal.

As a personal reflection after this assignment, lets just say i will never look at cows the same way again. haha.