Project Ego

We have reached the last project for Foundation 2D. For this project, we are to create 12 image compositions (4 sets of 3), where one image representing yourself adds with another image that represents a situation which will then form another image.

Me + Situation = Imagined outcome

For this project also, we are finally allowed to use colour. With that said, we have to show our understanding of the use of colours and the colour theory in our compositions.

Me and the Situations

So before we go into the compositions, we have to decide what or how to represent “me” and what sort of situations to put “me” into. To think of the different representations of myself, I think of how I see myself in life, my hobbies and my interests. And to think of the situations, I thought of things that happen in my life, short or regular, that I think would have a good way to represent or situations that have created an impact in my life.

4 representations of “me”

An empty canvas – I chose it to represent my interest in art and have always been involved in art since I was very young. Empty, because I am still looking for a style that truly represents me.
The sculpture “Kouros” – I learned about this sculpture in an Art History class. The sculpture is one of the early attempts to create a human. It is imperfect and can be improved, which represents me – imperfect and can/willing to improve.
A camera – This item would definitely represent my hobby which is photography.
A sloth – Well, this is the best default representation of me. When I am not designing or out taking photos, I very much love to sleep and sloth around, literally. I am also a late bloomer. It used to take me a much longer time to grasp something compared to others.

4 Situations

Family gatherings – No matter how much I hate it, I have to go through it. Every year. Most of the time I will wait for time to pass and I just cannot wait for it to end.
Shopping – Either window shopping or with the intention of buying something, retail therapy is one of my favourite pass time. I will normally put in the effort to dress up to go to town and meet up with friends to chill till evening.
Travelling – It is a yearly event to travel with my family and it becomes a time to unwind and just not think about work or school.
Sports – I really hate playing sports. I could just be one of the most unsporty guys out there. I really hate it since young and I really really hate PE lessons.

Draft

The Designs

There are 4 sets of 3 designs, 12 designs in total. Each of the 4 sets, as mentioned earlier, has a design that represents “me”, followed by a design that represents a situation, which is then followed by a design that represents an imagined outcome.

I am also going for the vintage-style digital collage, inspired by Hannah Hoch’s works. So my designs will have several images which if combined creates another image. The images will also be blurred slightly and have grainy noise added to it to add to the vintage look that I am going for.

I am going for an achromatic colour palette as I feel like I have a dull life at that colour palette would the best way to represent it. It also adds contrast to the background which will be coloured. The background will be coloured instead of the objects to represent how each situation and element represents and contributes to my life in general rather than the objects specifically.

First row

The first “me” is represented by an empty canvas. It represents my artistic side as well as me still looking for a style that represents me. In a way, I’m an open empty canvas.

The first situation is shopping, represented by shopping bags. It is something that I do occasionally during my free time, either for window shopping or with the intention to actually buy something.

The imagined situation is actually me, what used to be an empty canvas has now been painted on, representing me having found a style. So what contributed to the style are the other elements in the design. On the right side are paintbrushes which represent my friends who normally help to influence the style that I go for. While on the left are artist’s palettes with handles which represent shopping bags, the “paint” that style or design the canvas.

Second Row

The second representation of me is with the Kouros status. I learned about this statue in art history class which is one of the first attempts by artists to create a sculpture to represent a perfect human being. As nice as it looks, it is still imperfect and there are many more improvements that can be made, which are the many improvements that take place throughout history. Which in turn represents me in life. I am still not “ideal” or “perfect” in a way. What I am now can be further developed and further improved over time.

The second situation is travelling, represented by the aeroplane windows. It is a family past time to travel overseas together every year. There is a view of the Nyhavn in Copenhagen through the middle window to represent my most recent travel there, which will then follow up to the next design.

For the imagined outcome is that me, the sculpture, end up carrying all the luggage bags during the trip. This actually happened during the trip with my family to Copenhagen where I was the only child there and I had to carry my parents and my own luggage bags.

Third Row

For the third representation of me, I have chosen the camera because it is the best way to show my passion which is photography. So I combined the camera with human legs to represent “me”.

The fourth situation is with my relatives. Either during the festive season or during family gatherings, socializing with my relatives especially distant relatives is not something that i like to do.

So for the imagined outcome is me, represented by the camera and legs like the first frame, is hiding behind time. In a way, I am waiting for the time to pass.

Fourth Row

For the last design, I chose a sloth to represent me in my default mood. Sleeping and just being lazy is just me when I am not doing anything. So in the design, there is a sloth with sleepy eyes and mouth sleeping on a pile of pillows under a blanket and a couple of Zs floating in the air.

The last situation I picked is sports. It was one of the lessons during primary and secondary school that I really hate and makes me realise that I am not a sporty person and that I cannot do sports.

So to represent my hate for sports, I put the sloth in a situation where the sloth became the ball and is being kicked around with a worried and terrified face.

Project Ego – Research

Me + Situation = Imagined outcome

For this project also, we are finally allowed to use colour. With that said, we have to show our understanding of the use of colours and the colour theory in our compositions.

Colour Research

Different colours play a part in giving different meanings in design. It can be used as a symbol to represent different emotion in art.

Red – used to represent danger, anger and violence. It can also be used to represent love and passion.
Orange – used to represent creativity, passion, energy & endurance
Yellow – Life, energy, hope, wisdom, happiness
Green – Growth, health, envy, inexperience
Blue – Calming, freshness, purity, hygiene
Purple – Royalty, wealth, power
Black – Death, mourning, witchcraft, evil, fear
Grey – Boredom, decay, old age
White – Peace, purity, goodness

Knowing all these, I will implement the colours into this assignment to represent the different emotions that are represented in each artwork (square).

Artist Reference

So we are to look for 3 artists with styles that we could use in our works and pick one from the 3 that we would like to use as a reference.

I was planning to do digital collages for my works as I feel like trying that out and it would be interesting to see how it is used to represent the different elements in each composition.

Man Ray

The first digital collage artist that I found in Man Ray. I find that his works are mainly real images, somehow overlapped or manipulated with another image, creating a really interesting composition. Some of his works look like it is a double exposed photo.

Max Ernst by Man Ray (1934). Image from https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/423056958727760690/

Dora Maar by Man Ray (1934). Image from http://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/3318/top-10-collage-artists-hannah-hoch-to-man-ray

Eventhough I think that his style looks great, I think it would be too much of an effort to recreate it into my compositions.

John Stezaker

I really think John Stezaker’s works are unique to himself. Most of his works are a composition of two or more portraits or faces and combined seamlessly into one face or portrait.

Marriage L by John Stezaker (2007). Image from http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/john_stezaker.htm

Marriage VIII by John Stezaker (2006). Image from http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/john_stezaker.htm

As much as I think his works look great and unique to his own, I think it will be hard to express other elements in the composition that does not involve portraits or faces.

Hannah Hoch

The last of the digital collage artists that I came across is Hannah Hoch. Her style of collage is mainly combining different cut-outs of images and creating another image from them or just creating a composition from it with each cut-out representing an element in the composition.

Made for a Party by Hannah Hoch (1936). Image from https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hannah-hoch-fur-ein-fest-gemacht-made-for-a-party

Flight by Hannah Hoch (1931). Image from https://www.artsy.net/artwork/hannah-hoch-flucht-flight

Hannah Hoch will be the artist reference that I will be using for my works because I feel that it is an interesting way to represent the elements in each composition and the overall look and feel gives a unique look to it.

References

Project 2: Forrest Gump

Movie Quote 1: “Home is behind you, the world is ahead”

To me, this quote means that for one to grow, they should leave and move on from what they are comfortable with to take on other challenges, learning and developing new skills while at it.

The main feature of the design is the footsteps leading towards the top right of the picture. “Home” here is represented by the welcome mat which can normally be found at the entrance of houses. The mat, however, is upside down, meaning that the person is leaving home instead of entering.

The footsteps are shown slowly increasing in size as in goes further and further away from “home”, symbolising the person’s growth as he continues on to the outside world. The footsteps are also seen slowly changing into leaves, representing the person’s slowly immersing his or herself into the outside world, having a deeper understanding and eventually being part of it.

The nature details on the left and right side of the design also increase in size from the bottom up symbolising the increasing challenges and obstacles but at the same time the increasing knowledge as you get further away from “home”.

Movie Quote 2: “The world is not in your books and maps, it’s out there”

In my opinion, this quote means that for someone to truly experience and know the world, he should go outside and not learn just through books.

To represent books and maps, I first thought of a library, a place where you can find books and maps and generally a place where someone goes to look for information and learn about things. So the main feature of the design is actually shelves, with books represented by doors, supporting the saying,”Books are doors to another world”.

The books and shelves fall into the gap in the middle, with outer space in the background, symbolising “out there” in the quote. Overall giving the meaning that to know more about the world, you have to look beyond books and go outside.

Movie Quote 3: “May it be a light for you in dark places”

This quote to me is the idea of having hope and staying strong when things go downhill in life.

The main feature of the layout is the candle in the middle, with the candle flames made of praying hands, symbolising hope. The candle itself is represented by a pillar, symbolising a pillar of strength. Lines and dashed lines emitting from the candle flame creates a central focus towards it.

Darkness here is represented by the large use of black, and also the formation of the skull, symbolising darkness and death.

In the spaces, however, is actually an image of soft flowers (a little hard to see because of the colour halftone), symbolising light and peace that comes from hope (the candle flame)

Quote 4: “You gave me peace in a lifetime of war”

There are two elements of contrast here, which is peace and war in the same sentence. In my opinion, the quote means someone helped to break someone who was built for war and rage by giving them peace.

An hourglass containing different types of weapons used through the ages, ranging from swords to tanks and fighter jets, which symbolises “lifetime of war”.

If you look closely at the top right, there is a dove, symbolising peace, formed in the negative space formed by the weapons. The dove is released by the pair of hands at the bottom left, which smashed through the hourglass, symbolising “breaking of the lifetime of war”.

The left side of the background is actually chaos caused by war, but once the dove breaks through the hourglass, the background is pure white on the right side of the picture, symbolising peace.

Silkscreening

I have decided to go with the design for Quote #3 as I think that it will look best when silkscreened on the tote bag.

The screened design and the transparency

After creating the digital design, we were to print it out on two transparent sheets and align both of them together.

After that, we were then told to prepare the screen by spreading the photo emulsion on it. Firstly, we have to wash the screen to clear up all the dirt and dust on the screen. After the screen is dry, we spread a thin layer of photo emulsion on both sides of the screen.

Once both sides of the screen have a smooth layer of photo emulsion on, it is put aside to dry once more.

Once the emulsion has dried on the screen, we place the transparency with the design on it onto the screen and put it into the machine to transfer the design from the transparency onto the screen. The transparency needs to be inbetween the screen and the machine for it to be successful.

Wash off the emulsion from the screen so that the design will be more clear and the screen is ready to be used for silkscreening. The design, however, will be inverted, in a sense that, the black printed areas will be a negative space, while the negative space on the transparency will be “printed” onto the screen. Put it to dry again.

Screen with the design, after washing.

Once it is dry, place the desired surface to print the design onto a flat table. Then lay the screen flat onto the surface, with 4 coins attached to all 4 corners of the screen. This will allow the screen to not touch the surface while and after the design is printed.

Once all of these is prepared, spread a sufficient amount of paint at the top of the screen that is not touching the design. If your design has more negative space, use more paint.

Spread the paint at the top of the screen

Get a squeegee and hold firmly with both hands. Have a friend to help hold the screen firmly in place. When ready, use the squeegee and spread the paint downwards across the screen until the bottom. If you missed a few spots, turn the squeegee around and spread the paint back upwards, till all the spots have been covered. Should not spread too many times (personal experience, once or twice is good enough) as the design printed will turn out really dark and will lose a lot of details.

Hold down the surface (paper or in this case the tote bag) and carefully remove the screen.

Finalised print:

Project 2: My Quotes

I love fantasy movies – medieval-themed or history movies. One of my favourite movies ever would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I would not mind watching them again and again, even if I know what happens next. Even when I listen to the movie soundtrack, I know where in the movie that particular music piece is from. So most of my quotes would be from the movies of Middle-earth.

Movie Quote 1: “Home is behind you, the world is ahead”

It is a phrase used in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in the song sung by Pippin to the steward of Gondor.

It is also mentioned in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf managed to convince Bilbo to go on the adventure with him.

Movie Quote 2: “The world is not in your books and maps, it’s out there”

It is mentioned in the movie The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when Gandalf tries to convince Bilbo to follow them in his journey.

Movie Quote 3: “May it be a light for you in dark places”

It is mentioned by Lady Galadriel to Frodo when he hands him the light of Eärendil to help him with his journey to destroy the ring.

Quote 4: “You gave me peace in a lifetime of war”

It’s not a quote from a Middle Earth movie, but one of my other favourite medieval movie which I don’t mind watching again and again – Troy. It is mentioned by Achilles to Briseis when he is about to die. Even though the acting was a little bad (who talks so clearly when they are about to die), I still think it is a good line.

Making a Mark – My Line is Emo

Emotion: Love

When you’re in love, you get this bubbly feeling inside, but at the same time it clouds up your judgement and thinking. It becomes more intense the deeper you get, creating dark patches in your mind, dark emotions and thoughts slowly takes over.

Materials used: Chinese Ink, Washing Liquid, Bubbles, Straw

Emotion : Elation

In other words, great happiness.

The light feeling you get when you feel really happy, a burst of happiness out of your body. Tried to show it in the design in a way that the ink creates a light flowy pattern, all emerging from one point.

Materials used: Chinese Ink, Shaving Foam.

Emotion: Amazement

The feeling of great fascination, somehow creates explosions and fireworks in your head, in a literal sense: mind blown. (Would have used that word instead but its not in the list.)

Tried to show layers of “explosions and fireworks” by creating the patterns with an old bottle cleaner.

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, White Glue, Old Bottlecleaner.

Emotion: Rage

Inspired by the phrase, ‘beauty and rage’, from the song Ultraviolence by Lana Del Rey.

At first glance, it looks like a messy angry pattern. Nothing is clear, nothing makes sense when you are raging. However, if you look closely, there is a beautiful marbling effect created amongst the violent strokes, symbolising beauty in rage.

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, White Glue, Old Bottlecleaner.

Emotion: Sadness

Nothing is clear and nothing makes sense when your feeling really sad. The vertical black patches against the horizontal white spaces emphasizes on this uncertainty – your dark thoughts clashing with the positivity and hope, slowly taking over. The water effect created also further creates the somber and sad mood.

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, Water, Foam Board, Watercolour paper

Emotion: Fear

Inspired by nightmares. You cannot recall the dream exactly when you wake up, but somehow it still strikes fear when you have a nightmare. Everything is vague, dark and these nightmares always come in a misty and musty dream, soft and dream like, but unclear and dark.

Materials used: Black Ink, Water, Cling Wrap.

Making a Mark – Process

Emotion – Fear

Materials used: Black Ink, Water, Cling Wrap, Watercolour paper

I mixed water with ink to make it a little more watery, so its easier to play around, and then spread the mixture across the surface, in this case the watercolour paper strip.

I took cling wrap, and placed it firmly onto the inked surface.

Wait a while before you actually put it open, so it sets the textures and details a little.

I pulled out the cling wrap, and reveal the patterns created. i adjusted the clingwrap a little and place it on another area or any desired area on the surface to create another texture.

I left it to dry after I’m satisfied with it.

The Outcome:

Emotion – Amazement

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, White Glue, Old Bottlecleaner, Watercolour paper

This was an emotion that I thought long for. How can I show amazement?

Then I broke down the word and ended up with the word “mind-blown”. I instantly remembered the mind blown meme:

So I tried to recreate something similar.

I spread a mixture of white glue and a bit of poster paint evenly across the whole surface of paper strip.

(This by itself could be used as a method of mark-making, as I get to control the paint and glue mixture with my brush)

I then used an old bottle cleaner brush and dabbed into the paint and glue surface. I flipped and turned the brush to find a desired pattern for this emotion.

To get some areas darker, I dropped a few drops of poster paint to certain areas and continued to dab.

The Outcome:

Emotion – Rage

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, White Glue, Old Bottlecleaner, Watercolour paper

I was listening to Lana Del Rey’s Ultraviolence at that point of time, and was inspired to create something of beauty and rage.

Again, I spread a mixture of white glue and poster paint evenly across the watercolor paper surface.

I added more poster paint now to make it darker to convey a darker emotion.

But now, instead of dabbing the ink and white glue surface with the brush, I “angrily” brushed it while pressing into it hard.

The Outcome:

Emotion – Sadness

Materials used: Black Poster Paint, Water, Foam Board, Watercolour paper

I spread a mixture of black poster paint and water across the surface of a foam board. I realise the mixture does not spread evenly on the board no matter how much ink I applied. I noticed how it has gaps and watery patterns the poster paint creates.

I then placed the watercolor paper strip onto the paint and water mixture, and gently pressed the paper onto the foam board hoping to get the pattern printed onto the strip.

I slowly removed the strip from the foamboard, and the pattern is revealed.

The Outcome:

Emotion – Elation

Materials used: Chinese Ink, Foam Board, Shaving Cream, Watercolour paper

In other words, great happiness. I took several attempts to do this. The idea is to create something that has a lot of white spaces so it would not be too dark, and also to create something that has a light feeling to it.

I sprayed shaving cream across the foam board in the size slightly bigger than the paper strip.

I then dripped Chinese Ink on various areas of the foam. I only dripped a few inks as I would still want the end design not to be too dark.

Then I played around the ink drips with the back of a paintbrush, swirling it around to create the desired pattern.

I gently placed the strip on top of the foam with the desired ink design on it. I actually applied abit more pressure to get more of the details on the strip and not to leave any gaps.

I then gently removed the strip from the foam. The foam may look stretched and messy.

The design may look messy and grey now, but its not done yet. I took a scrap paper or squeegee and remove the foam from the paper, and the pattern is revealed!

The Outcome:

Emotion – Love

Materials used: Chinese Ink, Washing Liquid, Bubbles, Straw, Watercolour paper

Love was a tough emotion to think of, without making it too literal. So I tried to break down the word and think of what defines love…. so I ended up finding myself playing with bubbles.

I mixed Chinese Ink and washing liquid to make a bubbly mixture. I then blew into the mixture using a straw and the mixture started to bubble up with black bubbles!

I then took the paper strip and gently placed it on the bubbles while I was blowing it. I realise the faster I get it printed, the darker the pattern gets. If I wait a while, the pattern printed will be lighter.

The Outcome:

Making a Mark – Research

What is mark-making?

A simple Google search led me to a simple definition on ThoughtCo.com:

“Mark making is a term used to describe the different lines, patterns, and textures we create in a piece of art. It applies to any art material on any surface, not only paint on canvas or pencil on paper. A dot made with a pencil, a line created with a pen, a swirl painted with a brush, these are all types of mark making”.

From my own understanding, mark making is creating visuals using any form of medium. Artists also use different techniques of mark making as a way to express their thoughts and emotions into their artwork, giving their artwork more depth and meaning.

Mark-making techniques

Monoprint

In the dictionary says that monoprint is a single print taken from a design created in oil paint or printing ink on glass or metal.

Basically, a monoprint is a single impression of an image made from a reprintable block that has textures or design etched or created on it. There are many different methods of monoprinting.

Below is a video of a simple technique of monoprinting, where the art is “transferred” over to the paper after the art work is created on a surface.

Here is a similar method, but now uses reductive monoprint, where certain shapes or patterns are laid on the surface and when paint is applied, it covers the other areas but not where the shapes or patterns are, creating a negative space and capturing the shape in the process.

There are many other methods of monoprinting, but generally the idea of “capturing” a shape, texture or design of an object, and transferring it onto a paper or surface is similar.

A famous monoprint artwork would be Andy Warhol’s monoprint of Marilyn Monroe:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/3d/5a/a53d5a9cc7a419a6ef8b4f47881a1137.jpg

In my opinion, monoprinting is a doable method of mark-making, but it requires quite some creativity to know what sort textures and tools used and the positioning of those objects that is suitable for the artwork.

Fumage/smoke painting

Fumage is a technique in which impressions are made by the smoke of a candle or kerosene lamp on a piece of paper or canvas.

Some artists would leave the artwork as it is after painting it with the smoke/fire. However there are other artists that would use various tools to create textures or bring out the shapes of the designs in the artwork.

I would say this method of mark-making would require ALOT of practice and very much coordination of both hands and the mind, but if this technique is mastered it would create really beautiful and unique artworks.

A well-known artist that uses fumage would be Steven Spazuk. Some examples if his works are shown below:

http://madeinshoreditch.co.uk/2016/02/17/fumage-steven-spazuk/

Frottage

Frottage is the technique or process of taking a rubbing from an uneven surface to form the basis of a work of art. Basically, in rubbing a medium on paper that is layered above a textured object, in captures the texture and shape on the paper.

An example of frottage would be a work by Max Ernst, which he layered papers on wooden floors and rubbed the paper with soft pencils.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/f/frottage

Making a Mark (Prelude)

Took quite some time to think of an item for mark making, but i decided to use ramen/instant noodles. I think that it would create an interesting pattern, and different outcomes if used when it is still hard, and when it has already been softened.