Clop clop stomp stomp

In "honor" of election season, this week's design had to include donkeys and elephants. I figured the majority of entries would go for patriotic colors, so I wanted to avoid that in hopes of standing out a little more. Also I thought of just doing the foot and hoof prints of the animals instead of the animals themselves. I tried to google for images of such prints to get the spacing of the tracks right, but I couldn't think of the word "hoofprint" for an embarrassingly long time. "What's the word for the marks that a donkey's feet make, darnit?!"

Originally I was going to have the trails just criss-crossing each other randomly. However, I had a hard time getting it to look right as a repeat. Eventually I noticed that my layout sketch looked like a wonky argyle, so I thought, heck, why make it so hard on myself? Who doesn't like an argyle?

It was my husband who had the brilliant idea of having the Constitution be the background. I was trying to come up with something that would add a little depth but still be sort of "ground' colored. Since I had the framework of the argyle, I could use diamond-shaped segments of the document and not try to blend the edges together for the purpose of making a repeat.



It came out pretty close to how I envisioned it, so I'm pleased in that regard. Also the concept is still cracking me up! It came in 53 out of 103 with 68 votes.

There was another footprint entry, which I liked. For straightforward takes on the contest, I liked these watercolors and this tessellation (which came in second). I also liked this cutesy, more generally USA-themed one (which came in eighth).