Project Art Studio: Avatar & Me

When I joined in on this tour for Project Art Studio through Project Run + Play, I knew instantly how I wanted to begin. Though I don’t consider myself to be artistic, my eldest definitely is! For the past few years, I’ve watched Mint grow in their abilities from sketching in a notebook, experimenting with different mediums, including dabbling in acrylic paint and clay, but their real passion lies in digital art. That’s the angle I wanted to capture, more specifically their creation of Original Characters (OCs) which essentially are like avatars in the webspace, hence the title. Here are some of their favorite drawing they’ve completed.

Creating OCs is one of Mint’s favorite things and the process for them is always taking aspects of people, their likes, their hobbies, and favorite things and mixing it up with a blend of colors and imagination. Sometimes the characters are created based on imagined people, other times, they are influenced by real life. Both my kids’ character names are Mini Mint and Lemon Boy, and they are the characters depicted in this set.

I showed Mint the color palette for this tour (the Pantone fall/winter color trends for the year) and had them choose the colors they wanted to work with. I dug through my stash to find fabrics in colors that were as close as possible, then gave them the line drawings from the pattern sponsors for them to sketch the outfits to be sewn. The resulting clothing and illustrations are what they came up with. I am so happy to have my first official collab with my baby love and for our worlds to intertwine. I hope this is a jumpstart to do this more often. Maybe you’ll see more from this duo 🙂

As a part of this process, I asked Mint to encapsulate what art meant to them:.

“Art is about having fun and being creative. It can convey emotions, whether that’s to be sad, happy, scared. It’s a way to talk about those emotions without even speaking. Ultimately, art is about creating what makes me happy, even if others don’t get it. They don’t have to get it because it’s about expressing my feelings and other people don’t always understand others’ feelings and that’s okay.” -Mini Mint

A special thank you to the pattern sponsors for helping this vision come to life:
Project Run + Play Easel Tee with an added heart reverse appliqué, Blank Canvas Cardigan and Sofiona Designs Rocky Shore Tights for Mint
Project Run + Play Multi Hue Henley with an added chest pocket and Waves & Wild Four Seasons Joggers for Lemon Boy

Here’s my obligatory photo dump of the outfits. Make sure to scroll to the end for a little surprise from Mint!

If you’d like to see more of Mint’s work, check out their YouTube Channel!