30SAL Challenge: Emoji

This creative challenge is different from a lot of other challenges out there. Designed to foster a wide variety of artists, these prompts are aimed at an unusually wide variety of creative skills. I’ve categorized prompts by type, so you can enjoy the things that come naturally to you, and strengthen the things that don’t. For every day of the drawing challenge I invite you to work a different creative muscle:

1. MONDAY: Memory/Imagination
2. TUESDAY: Observation
3. WEDNESDAY: See and Respond
4. THURSDAY: Vocabulary 
5. FRIDAY: Design
6. SATURDAY: Experimental
7. SUNDAY: Wild Card

Sunday is the wild card for creative challenges, so today I’m going to invite you to do something expressive and silly: invent your own emoji.

First, let’s define emoji, and see how it’s different from an emoticon:

An emoji is an image small enough to insert into text that expresses an emotion or idea. Emoji are most often used in emails and text messages, though may be found in any type of electronic communication. The word emoji is a combination of the Japanese word e which means picture, and moji which means character. Emojis were first used in cell phone communication in Japan in 1999. Emoji and emojis are both considered correct plural forms of the word emoji. Oxford English Dictionary chose an emoji crying tears of joy as the word of the year of 2015.

¯\(°_o)/¯

I am an emoticon.

An emoticon is a representation of a human facial expression using only keyboard characters such as letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Emoticons became popular in the 1990s with the advent of emails and texting. The word emoticon is a portmanteau, made by combining the words emotion and icon. Remember, an emoticon is built from keyboard characters that when put together in a certain way represent a facial expression, an emoji is an actual image.

Emoji/Emoticon info source: https://grammarist.com/new-words/emoji-vs-emoticon/

Your challenge is to create simplified representations of a range of emotions. While specific characters are fun, focus instead on making a simple shape that relays a feeling, not a character. Materials, shapes, and expressions are artist’s choice.

When you’ve finished your session, post your project and tag #30SAL so we can find it online.

Feel free to copy and paste these tags to your post to invite more views and interactions: #drawingchallenge #drawing #art #illustration #sketch #artchallenge #drawings #artist #draw #artistsoninstagram #sketchbook #instaart #drawthisinyourstyle #artwork #drawingoftheday #dailydrawing #inkdrawing #drawingsketch #artoftheday #myart #pencildrawing #drawthisinyourstylechallenge #creativity #creativechallenge #designchallenge #artjournal #emoji #seattleartistleague #30sal