Frog Icon

I chose a frog for the Animal Icon Assignment because frogs are one of my all-time favorite animals. Any chance I get to insert frogs into the conversation, I do. When I taught last semester, I used frog-related facts to help teach my students how to do in-text citations in their writing. I also collect frog things! I have seven frog stickers on my laptop, a malachite frog, a ceramic frog, a frog necklace, and a frog ring box. I love frogs.

                I also learned a lot while trying my hand at making the frog icon. I’d never used any kind of digital design software before, and I didn’t know how much there was to figure out! I had no trouble making the initial image translucent enough to trace, and I had no issues tracing it. Coloring the image was a problem, however. I had to learn how to control the “feathering radius,” the “threshold,” and the “grow selection.” I had never heard of these before as they relate to graphic design. I sort of just played around with different values in those boxes until I got to the desired effect. I also learned how to play around with layers on their own, which was very cool. I’m really excited to learn more about this kind of software!