I started by laying out a simple mindmap with my first ideas and the limitations of the challenge. I like to sometimes do this with sticky notes on a wall, letting me walk around and ramble to myself, developing ideas and concepts.

For my perfect Oasis I wanted to go with a personal take of what I enjoy and love, not painting myself into the picture but a stand in, who coincidentally, has the same tastes and hobbies as myself. I really wanted this to my picture perfect scenario, where I don't overthink it too much, go by the rule of cool, and enjoy the process. I wanted my final image to be what I saw whenever I closed my eyes and imagined my perfect space.

Initially, I was torn between 2 broad concepts. An idealic rural landscape, or a picturesc urban scene. Then I was torn between, a landscape, focusing on community or a more personal piece showing an interior that describes a persons life.

While undiced I started doing research and multiple thumbnails. These were sometimes small and in lineart, most were made with silluetes and greyscale shapes, slowly getting more complex.

"1st and 2nd Pass for Thumbnails"

We can see that for the fist pass I was trying it all, indoor, outdoor, rural, urban, futuristic, retrofuturistic, medieval, camping, symbolic, literal...seeing what clicked.

Afterall this is supposed to be MY oasis.

This really helped getting me in focus and narrow my options, getting all of the silly ideas out of my system seemed almost necessary. During the 2nd round of thumbnails I started to get a clearer picture of what I wanted, from my previous ideation I got somewhat intrigued by the sky (at somepoint even having floating cities), and tried to play a bit with it's shapes. Another element's shape I started to play a lot with were the tents and various fabrics in my previous thumbnails, leading me to these house shapes with big swooping lines. And finally my last thumbnail, a looking from inside to outside shot of a studio, onto a couple ejoying their evening. This, and the drawing above it, were the 2 thumbs I decided to work with.

I worked on these 2 concepts, the first was a wider picture of a self sustained, green community, with a house in frame, it's inhabitants and 2 visiting friends, representing community. The other one was the inside of a house, I wanted to show personal interests, trough a Studio space, and a living space that would involve a couple enjoying their evening.

Having choosen what concepts to persue, I will now develop them into slightly less messy drawing. Which I'll share more about tommorow.