Six Emotions

The final six marks have been completed! REJOICE! We’ve all spent a great deal of time on these babies, so I hope the emotions conveyed using the array of marks can be felt and understood by their viewers.

Infatuation

Think of affection. Now, merge that with obsession. There you have it, an addictive kind of love that comes as quickly as it goes; infatuation. This feeling admiration mixed with addiction is why I chose to use dots of varying sizes, conveying the repetition of the strong feeling of love. The dots are clustered together to form a thick, curvy line with loops, representing the feeling of affection and high energy that drives the passion, which soon thins out to a string of dots, showing how short-lived the feeling really is.

Zeal

Enthusiasm that spurs you on to achieve something. That, to me, is what zeal means; that energy and excitement to go forth and get what you want. It has a positive note to it, thus the rounded shapes, which are arranged to look like they’re rising up, showing that movement towards a goal. Diagonal lines are also present to emphasise high energy action, and they are accompanied by dots that give those sharp lines a softer, more positive feel.

Amazement

When you step into astonishingly beautiful place, there’s this feeling of wonder that washes over you, and you can’t help but to feel surprised and excited altogether. Of course, there are so many things to look at, and you can’t decide on what to focus on first. So, out of marvel and excitement, you rush up to anything and everything, taking quick glimpses of every little thing, finding surprises in every corner, spinning around, finding something new, and repeating that whole process. That sense of wonder and amazement is captured in this mark using glitter, representing that element or surprise and wonder upon seeing all that is fascinating to you. The lines created are sharp to show energy of excitement, and quick, curved strokes convey the movement of turning around eagerly to see something new.

Loathing

Anger can be quite an easy emotion to express in a mark; tearing, crumpling, stabbing, and scratching are some of the many methods that express the brute force of unrestrained rage. Loathing. however, is more like a feeling of anger and disgust that is kept within, so outright sharp, tense lines won’t do. Therefore, the marks show rounded shapes with fuzzy, scratchy outlines; a mask that fails to hide the negative aura radiating from the cavity within, which is filled with sharp spikes. Those sharp marks symbolise the feeling of loathe bottled up inside.

Hurt

Be it physically or emotionally, we all get hurt, and the pain that ensues can range anywhere from the light throbbing of a boo-boo to crippling agony. In this mark, I made vertical scratchy lines, some thin and some thick, just like the scrapes you get when you fall down, with some bigger, gaping wounds. Short wires were twisted together to create barbwire, which extends throughout the length of the paper, sparing no inch. the barbs pierce the surface easily, showing how fragile we can be. Once caught in barbwire, escaping won’t be easy; it takes time to rid yourself of it, and even then, the scars left behind serve as a grim reminder of the pain and suffering you went through.

Panic

Anxiety can be a nasty little thing, until it gets bigger. And bigger. And bigger. Until it finally consumes and controls your entire being. It strikes fear into your heart, causing you act unthinkingly, resorting to making wild and hasty decisions; anything to escape that terrifying, nerve wrecking situation. In this mark, anxiety is embodied in a small and dark dot in the center. The curved, crooked lines surrounding it show its gradual growth, right up till it can grow no more, and that’s when all hell breaks loose. Ink was dotted along the outer ring of lines, and with quick breaths, I blew sharply through a straw at them, the ink creating sharp streaks that split up at random, much like our unpredictable actions asserted in a panic-stricken state.

And that marks the last of my six emo lines. The whole make making journey that led up to this was quite eye-opening. Admittedly, abstract art wasn’t really my thing, mainly because I didn’t understand it and thought it was just something only super artsy-fartsy people would get. But after much researching and analysing, learning about the different marks and what they mean, as well as the different methods of mark making, I managed to grasp a little how mark making works as a way of expressing our feelings. 10/10 peaked my interest in abstract art 🙂