With this, we have come to the end of my third project for 2D. For the project, we were supposed to come up with a total of 12 pictures. They are sorted into 4 rows, with each row having three pictures representing ourselves, a scenario or situation, and then the outcome when we put these two things together. In a way, it is supposed to show who we are as individuals, placed in scenarios and how we would “react” to it. For this project, I wanted to show the simple things in life that I feel I cannot live without. They are my “addictions”. Thus, from my first post, I have decided to represent them in the way like they are drugs. I feel like when you take any one of these elements away from me, I am lost, I feel a withdrawal. Without further ado, let’s get into it.
For my first row, I wanted to show how sleep is very important to me. Ever since stepping into university, I have been suffering from a lack of sleep in a bid to finish my assignments and do them well. As such, I often sleep late, or even not sleep at all, falling sick and missing lessons. It was a sacrifice that I never imagined myself making, hence suffering because of the lack of it.
Here we have my three compositions from this line.
Here, in the first picture you can see me feeling the brunt of my nightly sacrifices in my facial expression. The one below is the same, just the digital file before I layered the transparency. This picture is supposed to represent my exhaustion from the semester. The paint symbolises me being pulled away, like half of me is gone. It shows how I’m only half the person I am at any given point of time, half my attention, half my being.
I then show the temptations of the bed in the second picture, showing how enticing the bed is when it’s late in the night, but I’m still completing my assignments.
The third is me when I can finally sleep, trying to readjust my sleep cycle. When I do, I take hormonal pills to coerce my body to fall asleep at regular timings. Hence, here I show how I “forcefully” inject sleep inducing drugs into myself, showing how addictive I find sleep. (No, I did not really inject myself for the picture, though I pricked myself several times. Yes, that is an actual drug in the syringe. It’s a liquid panadol.) For the third picture, because I didn’t really talk about it in my previous posts, I wanted to recreate the drug-induced high / psychedelic effect, hence I layered several pictures together and played around with the colours, staying true to my theme of layers. I believe that there are many complexities to people and layers beneath the surface, who is to say we cannot embrace them and present them in art?
For my next line, I did it on coffee. As I am very reliant on coffee to get me through the sleepless nights, I wanted to show just how addicted to caffeine I really am.
In my first and second picture, I show a composed face, which is what I feel when I do my work. I focus on getting the work done, as efficiently as possible. Here, I don’t use paint in the layering because I wanted to keep the doodle as pure as possible, without ruining the effect. The geometric design over my face is supposed to show how I strive for perfection. I am structured. I am constructed. I am constructed to do so.
The second is the scenario, I am working hard late into the night and sleepiness begins to set in. I am feeling the tiredness and I am slowly overwhealmed by it.
In a bid to fight it off, I take coffee. I take lots of it. Sometimes I feel it’s not enough I need to snort it.
Ok, I am only joking. I just drink my coffee. (But in all seriousness DO NOT accidentally snort coffee. It hurts and you will hate the smell of it for awhile.) In the picture I show the “buzz” from the caffeine from “consuming” it. However, I did not take that into overdrive, but I instead mellowed it down a little as well in the “lighter” more muted colours. This is to show how you have a caffeine crash after.
In my next line, I show how often at times, I feel bored, I feel depressed. Sometimes, I feel both. This sense of ennui plagues me often, hence I look towards my friends to always bring a smile upon my face.
Ok. Here we go.
For my first and second photos, I wanted to show how I was extremely bored, yet with the underlying tone of feeling depressed and listless. Thus, in combination with my facial expression, I used dark, cool hues to show the feeling of sadness and boredom. It is almost as if it surrounds me, creeping in, ready so swallow me whole.
The next is the scenario. I’m out with friends, having fun and laughing. it doesn’t matter what we do, but it’s the company that matters. (This is a candid by the way. It was on the way to lunch in school and my friend happened to capture the moment. We were laughing so hard I can’t even remember why.)
The last shows me consuming my “happy pills” (my friends). I wanted to show how I am very dependent on them, like a druggie on his pills. This picture is a little more light hearted then the other “outcomes”, as you can see with me cropping the faces of my friends in, making me literally consuming them as my happy pills.
For my final line, I wanted to express how I am a shopaholic at heart. Actually, no, not even shopaholic. I just spend money like no one’s business. I guess I am willing to spend on things that will make me happy. Whoever said that money can’t buy happiness, clearly didn’t know where to shop.
So, this time, for my first picture of the row, there are three layers (technically). First would be me smiling, but my hands are covering it up as a representation of my unhappiness with my appearance. The second would be the paint, with the strokes appearing as though it’s trying to cover it up, in anger and dissatisfaction. Lastly, my smiling face, only drawn on top of my hand covered, paint laced face. This picture is supposed to show how I am not happy with the way I look, thus giving me a reason to spend money. (If only this was the only reason, then my bank account wouldn’t look like the Great Depression.)
The next photo symbolises the lures of online shopping, and holding my own debit card. These are the banes of my bank account, as it makes it so much easy to spend and shop. It is a test and call to my will-power.
But alas, I succumb to the lure of it, for it is too great. This last photo shows how I spend money, for it burns fast like the ember on a lit cigarette. The $50 note on it represents how my money just burns away from me. The mirrored effect shows how I think I’m spending $50 but in reality I don’t even know I have spent 4 times as much.
With this, I conclude my 2D journey for this semester! I hope you have enjoyed yourself on my page, following me in my artistical (is this even a word) journey so far! I hope to see you next sem! Oh, and below will be a TL;DR (Too long; Didn’t read) for you lazy people out there.
TL;DR – In summary, each of my lines represent an “addiction” in my life. The first photo of each line is always a portrait of myself, represented in different manners via facial expression and layering of transparency, depending on what I’m feeling. The second is the scenario which I am put in. It is often the “lure” to me taking my ” drug. The final picture is my ” drug”, my addiction. I use photoshop to make it seem as though you are on a psychedelic trip from taking drugs to make you feel what I feel when I have my addictions.
