Category: Project 1: Therapeutic Graphic Research

A Second Trip to Ng Teck Fong Hospital

After the one week was gone, I still haven’t had any ideas came out so I decided to go the hospital for second time with Siqi. We chose to go there between 1800 to 1900 to do another observation. It is because we not only can see the lights went through the window at day and also we can observe how the lights change at night.

I found a wheelchair bay at the end of the travellator. This is a discovery that I did’t realise last time.

The whole environment looked lifeless while the sky was getting dark. This happened around 6:45pm.

The lighting was so nice when the lights were all on!

Colour Scheme

After I decided to choose the OCEAN to be my theme for this project, I applied the cool colour scheme to be the main colour. Besides, the wave is in this colour scheme originally and it will make you feel more soothing.

Process (First Stage)

Due to my very slow progress before, I forced myself to catch up the progress of our classmates after the consultation with Michael. I think I should do that because if I didn’t get this it to complete this time, I can’t imagine when I will postpone this project until.

Actually, for my primary idea was something like kids drawing and kids collage because it brings out the freestyle of an innocent child. After that, I came out with the idea of mosaic art which is inspired by the art of the children’s collage. Then, I ask for suggestion from my friend, she told me that the mosaic makes her feel uncomfortable because there is too much things going on in one image. So, I changed my idea from the mosaic art of ocean animals to the curly waves.

Then, I ask for suggestion from my friend, she told me that the mosaic makes her feel uncomfortable because there is too much things going on in one image. So, I changed my idea from the mosaic art of ocean animals to the curly waves.

Here are the development of my first sketches:

Process (Second stage)

After that, I started all of this with my strength. The waves were painted in blue and green watercolour. I felt enjoyable this time because I didn’t define the shape of waves and how it should look like. This media was quite potential to develop as the watercolour will have different tones and shapes depended on how you paint it.

The random waves I painted it didn’t give me a comfortable feeling and I decided to cut it with different shapes.

I scanned it and see how it can be fun in photoshop!

By the repetition of the blue shape to make it looks like waves. I gave up this because it looks too organised and it doesn’t attract me.

Pushing the same idea by drawing shapes in Photoshop.

Process (Third Stage)

Lastly, my friend sent me a picture that made her felt comfortable the most. It had inspired me why not to use horizontal lines to represent the waves. So I did the first tried out as below. For more process please refer to the next post 🙂

Therapeutic Graphic

An attractive drawing definitely can reduce pain. “A 2011 University of London study found that blood flow increased 10 percent to the “joy response” part of the brain when subjects saw a beautiful painting — just like when you look at a loved one.”

So, I went to research how to create calming effect for this project. I found a few point to emphasise which are: 1) Lines can give us a sense of calm, especially a horizontal line. 2) Value effects the mood of the artwork. Low value contrast creates a subtle. 3) Visual textures can be created by reproducing the value and color patterns of actual textures.

Site visit and observation

When I first came to this place, the first thing had attracted me is the scenery outside the window, the following was the travellator and the window with horrendous rows of bars. There are some stores related to F&B and also a florist connecting the link way. Besides, I discovered that there is one-point perspective happened at here. Black and white are the colors mainly be used in this place. Generally, most of the hospital will use the color above as the entire space will look clean and neat. Lastly, I found that the people will go through the travellator most of them who are the staff members of the hospital while the patients rarely pass through it.

Outside of the window we can see many cars driving on the road and IMM Shopping Mall, it’s a symbol of a city. Looking out of the windows, I saw a lot of iron bars, possibly because of the security considerations so they have to this design. However, at the same time, because of these iron bars make me feel trapped in a space and it also blocking the scenery outside of the window. So, we need to considerate it as a part of our design.

The people here usually use travellator but they may not focus on the window or the scenery. Some of them will just look down at the phone while others are talking with their friends.

There is an exhibition between the two travellator, it provides some introduction about the hospital. I found that only a small number of wheelchair patients and hospital staff will use the middle road, otherwise others will use the travellator.

Mindmap

Moodboard

Sketches

Finally, I had chosen NATURE to be my theme of this project. I decided to work on the elements which are ocean and clouds.

Idea 1:

I found that when people was walking either travellator or the middle space, there will have some distance between them and the window. I will use mosaic art to present it because it is a combination of different shapes and I think it simplifies the curve of the waves. People can look the images clearly even it is a mosaic art due to the distance between them and the window.

Idea 2:

When I was on the way to get back my hall one day, I found that the sky was so beautiful because of the different shape of the clouds. The cold color tones of the clouds give me a comfortable mood. Siqi suggested me that I can work on the clouds of different shape of the animals.