I was given the task to deliver 12 representations of myself in a creative way. This theme and project is especially interesting because I get to explore and discover myself and ask myself who exactly am I?

Initial idea draft

I changed all of my initial idea because I felt that they don’t represent the idea of colours well. They deal more with theatricality rather than colours. Hence, I decided to drop my initial idea.

Main idea draft

What do I like about myself? What do I dislike about myself? Who do I want to be in the future?

Starting off with my current self,

Plain Empty Shell + Inner Creativity = Explosion of Imagination

I find myself to be a empty shell. I believe that a body is an empty shell that exist to hold the inner soul that resides within. I consider myself to be plain and perhaps, not much of an interest. However, I love to indulge myself in the realm of creativity and I love to discover amazing and interesting artworks delivered by talented artists around the world.

Research

These are the few Facebook pages that I frequently visit to seek inspirations. 

JUICE magazine that frequently features artists around the world.

MTV page. Their content was managed by a team of 4-5 writers that frequently updates the page with juicy and interesting news of Hollywood and celebrations and really cool stuffs.

I feel that the constant exposure of such media allows and encourages me to try out new ideas. In addition, such media sparks my imagination and creativity further.

Even though the delivery of the first equation is not inspired by any artist but I happened to chanced upon an artist that produced similar works. Her name is Agnes Cecile. She play with watercolours paint and fades to produce a series of emotional portraitures. 

More of her works are available for view here. http://agnes-cecile.deviantart.com/

Execution

On the first equation, to represent an plain empty shell, I used the technique of the previous assignment which is to posterise myself to show only a black and white self. Adding up, to show a creativity imagination, I play with a myriad of colours using smoke brushes.

Finally, the addition of an plain empty shell and a colourful inner creativity gives a explosion of imagination.

Moving on,

More Fruits & Vegetables – Less Reliance on Coffee & Pills = In the Pink of Health

I guess a better me would be me loving myself more. I don’t take as much fruits and vegetables to compensate for the amount of coffee and pills I’m consuming.

I always get headaches. Small and big headaches and it has been affecting me for quite some time. So I usually eat painkillers to ease off the pain. Especially nearing the submission period, I tend to take in more coffee as well. I have been drinking coffee every day and I cannot start my day without a cup of coffee. However, drinking it every day can actually be bad to health in a long run. Hence, I feel that I should cut down on pills and coffee and take in more of fruits and vegetables.

Execution

To represent the idea eating more fruits and vegetables, I initially wanted to juxtapose a image of myself with fruits and vegetables in me. However, after consultation, I was advised to instead composite 3 fruits or vegetables together while applying the concept of composition that I learnt in assignment 2. Hence, using the theory of contrasting colours in colour palette, I chose orange and green to compose my image. I play with colour burn, linear burn and opacity and background foreground to deliver the image. At the background, there is cucumbers and at the foreground, there’s papayas, durians and tomato. I played with lines such that it is converging and diverting my audiences’ attention to the tomato.

Moving on to less reliance on coffee and pills, I using coffee stain brushes to dap on the white image. I played with opacity. After which I duplicate the layer and drag it slightly to the left before fading it.

On pills, I use a myriad of colourful pills and increase the number of pills as it moves from the left to right. Duplicating two layers, I remove the reds and cyan and blue respectively before dragging both on opposite directions. The end state is a 3D effect.

In totality, I want to convey the idea of hallucination. The effects of taking in too much coffee and pills. The idea of seeing what’s not there. This image concept is one of my personal favourite because it successfully delivered the concept and idea well.

Moving on to the answer to a better me, I want to convey the idea of the pink of health after removing the reliance of coffee and pills. Hence, I crossed my arms to signify strength and I use digital manipulation to show myself in pink flames. I played with contrast and fade to composite this image. Fire is often associated with energy, vitality and power. Hence, it further accentuates my position of in the pink of health. I contrast the pink flames with a black background because it has a greater contrast as compared to white.

Wisdom + Hardworking = CONFIDENT

This is my favourite series of all. There are a lot of things to learn and discover in the world. I guess I know barely 1% of all the information available around the world. Hence, I hope to acquire more wisdom in the future to expand my knowledge.

I was advised on doing a shoot of myself wearing an owl mask to show the idea of wisdom. I bought a white mask and pasted feathers on the mask. I perched myself on a rock as if I’m a bird looking out.

I also always find myself to be lazy and I tend to procrastinate a lot. Hence, I hope to be more hardworking in the future. I chose to represent myself as a bull because a bull is always doing work; seldom rests. I wore a white horned headgear to represent myself as a bull. I got all my limbs on the ground to display strength.

Lastly, the combination of both images is a Confident me looking out to the wilderness, ready for adventure.

Execution

Coming to colours, I once again experimented with contrasting colours. I increased the saturation to contrast the green forest with my warm skin. I increase the contrast as well to accentuate the strong lines on my body.

As for aesthetic purposes, I bought stick on metal tattoos and pasted it on my face and body. It was also partially inspired by the art direction seen on the models walking for Jarkata Fashion Week where they had stick on tattoos pasted on their faces.

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Abundance of Money + Abundance of Freedom = Travel Around the World

In 5 years’ time, I hope to have a sea of money and freedom to explore the world.

To convey the idea of abundance of money, I ask myself what is vast? The sea. Hence, I played with linear burn to juxtapose $50 notes with the raging waves. Also, I played with Analogous colours of green, turquoise and blue to compose my image.

For abundance of freedom, I played with white and blue because they both represent the colours of freedom and wideness. Instead of actual wings, I used white doves to form the shape of my wings. I added lens flare to show myself flying up to the sun above.

Lastly, to show myself travelling around the world, I placed the earth in the middle and placed iconic monuments around the world around the globe. Most of the icons are from the 7 wonders of the world. I also placed one of the temples around the globe. It is located in Tibet. I always wanted to visit Tibet where it is not easily accessible. I adore the peace and serenity there where the pace of life is much slower and enjoyable.

Although not much colours are represented in this image, I tried to compensate it by playing with composition. The taller buildings are placed on the north and south of the globe  while the wider ones are placed on the east and west.

Reflections

This project enables me to explore more about myself and also to better apply the theory of colours in the composition of images. I had a great time finding inspirations and showing the class what interest me and who do I want to be in the future.