Tag: foundation

micro-project 5 // the art of d e s t r u c t i o n

March 6, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Members: Amanda, Joey, Celine

The three of us decided to use videos to glitch, walking around ADM and taking videos of the most random things. We tried taking still videos, and also very jumpy cryptid videos where there were many motion blurs. After taking these videos, and also looking like we weren’t that right in the heads, we each took our own videos and edited short clips on our own, creating our own form of glitch, while also making a gradual slip of sanity when compiled together.  Throughout the final video there is a sense of destruction in the mind, and also in the video itself.

Draft.

graphic form project 1 // procress

February 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I had been initially really clueless about how to do this project — what was I supposed to start with? I started researching on various elements of the jobs I have chosen, and picking elements that would best show the job. As mentioned in my research, I had already picked out various elements I wanted to pick up for my jobs. I also started looking into the types of fonts that best represented what I wanted to go for, which was like a starting point for my artwork.

Dream collector

For the dream collector, I decided to use dreamcatcher elements to represent my job to collect dreams. I imagined it as something where clouds represented dreams, and they would get caught when drifting past the dreamcatcher.

References + drafts.

I started experimenting with how I wanted the dreamcatcher types to look like, and how the strings inside would tie up together. It was really hard figuring this out as most dreamcatchers were round. I had to google rectangular dreamcatchers and just generally stared at dreamcatchers for a very long period of time, also referencing from a dreamcatcher I received when I was younger, picking at the strings and how they were connected.

A simple look, trying to figure out how the piece would look with this font; I ended up choosing this font.

I went with this serif font: Labor Union. It was actually thinner, as shown in the first picture, but I made it thicker so that I could fit the strings that dreamcatchers had. I staggered the words, giving the look of dreamcatchers being hung from different lengths.

Screenshot of an earlier version.

Originally, I gave it a purple hue because I wanted to make the scene more surreal. But then I realised it looked super ‘obiang’, and threw the attention off. I also did not know how to make the beads look more realistic and I got really frustrated at some point, deciding to stop for the nth time to do another piece of work before I threw my laptop out.

Next try. Used illustrator for the background for this version.

I tried working with nightly palettes and came to this point. It still didn’t do it for me, because it felt very flat. And I was still very new to the whole brush thing on Illustrator as well, which made it very uncomfortable for me to paint anything in Illustrator. I consulted Shirley and she told me I could use any medium (kinda what I wanted to hear, because as much as I wanted to learn Illustrator, I still wanted to create something I could appreciate.)

Final piece!

I decided to go back to something I was more familiar with for the time being, using Photoshop and playing with colours and brushes to create a soft looking cloud area, texturing it and adding tiny stars to represent the night sky. I also made the words off-center, adding little feathers (learnt it on some tutorial!) and the strings to hand them with on Illustrator.

Nonetheless, this was one of my friends’ favourite pieces. It made me really happy because this was one of the hardest pieces I had as it was the most layer heavy one, and I learnt how to make a pattern brush (for the threading) and an art brush (for the feathers). I kept asking friends for opinions, resulting in all those screenshots being available, and the constant changes from colour to colour and for it to reach this final piece.

 

Emoji Factory Worker

For this job, the emoji factory worker, I wanted a more 3D effect on a vector style. I was deciding between using a 2D font or prefixed 3D type fonts, such as orange juice and Pony Maker. I ended up sticking with Pony Maker, as orange juice was a bit less ‘clean’ in its look, whereas I wanted to give a vibe of a super ‘clean’ environment for factory based work.

Draft.

I used some of my favourite emojis and specifically used emojis and text speech bubbles from the iPhone, as it was a recognisable element of text messaging. iPhone’s message bubbles also have not changed in years, and thus made it an iconic semiotic of smartphone texting. I also kept the L behind the C and made the L smaller, to create some sort of 3D effect.

In an attempt to learn how to play with vectors in Illustrator, I stared Super Hard at the bubbles and managed to recreate it, I would say, rather perfectly. I am proud of myself.

After consulting with Shirley, she told me to keep the number of repeating emojis to at most three, as a big variation would be confusing.

Final piece.

I kept with simple primary colours in various values, creating a very simple but varied piece. There’s red, blue, green, and then there’s yellow in the emojis. It created a very unified look with these simple colours which I think stood out better than the complex crafted pieces I did for other jobs.

Hair Farmer

I went with putting hair on a head. I basically wanted to farm my hair on skin, for the sake of people who did not have hair. I wanted to create a skin texture with imperfections and pores and pimples. I initially went with the top middle font (cannot remember the name, I think it was Bellaboo) for a more brushy effect, like the hair was very unkempt.

First draft.

I then decided to try it out again with more textures, and used my knee for the skin texture. I also took it in such a way that hopefully looked like it was the head of a bald person.

Second draft. It honestly looks really gross.

I then realised that textures were really hard to implement as it made everything look really flat on a curved surface. I considered doing it on a more top-down flat angle, but after consultation, I realised it was still best for it to be on a curved surface, as if on a head.

Final piece. It still looks gross to me, and friends actually got goosebumps looking at it. Credits to my brother’s back 😉

The texture of the skin was provided by my darling brother going through puberty right now. 😉 I used his back and he had pimples so it was perfect. I curved the image, adding a drop shadow for a more 3D effect, and used a hair texture brush on Photoshop to carefully trim nice hedges of hair. I also added stray pieces like how it would look when people cut grass/bushes. A rake was then stuck into it for semiotic purposes, like it was left there after a long day of work.

Neurologist

This piece took awhile for me to figure out. I basically wanted to specially form the brain matter into my name. Shirley then suggested that the letters could be “cut out” of the head instead, so that whatever negative space was going to be bald head. I wanted to use the font Open Dyslexic, because I love the irony of using that with the job neurologist.

First draft. Used another font for this.

In my first draft, I had difficulty creating perspective with the heads. But the idea was more or less there. The heads would look simple, whereas the brain matter would be more on the realistic side, with bone and meat being seen along the ridges.

Second draft.

I then tried creating perspective with the heads, putting some heads in front to represent the first letter, and having them smaller as a sense of continuity and harmony. After consultation, I was told to further simplify these heads by removing the necks and I took away the dripping goo.

Concentrating on painting realistic brain matter, but giving it a slight sense of surrealism.

Final piece.

I added some surgery tools on a surgery table, giving it a dark background to concentrate on the visceral effect the brains had. The colours were also brought to the basic three, red, blue and green. I wanted to use green for the heads to represent a more surrealistic look, using the red background to represent blood and a blue table for how most surgical places were mostly clean and cool and metal-like.

 

Some of the difficulties I faced was trying to decide if I could finish all 4 pieces on Illustrator — I could not. HAHAHA. But I’m honestly proud of myself to have created two of them entirely on Ai, and I’m glad they were well-received by friends and classmates alike. One of the things I learned from doing this was really staring at the objects that I wanted to use. For example, dreamcatchers are surprisingly hard to capture, but once you do they are really intricate and beautiful pieces. Another example would be for the neurologist piece, I had to stare at brains for really long, and realise they look like chee cheong fun. All my friends wanted to eat my artpiece. I don’t know whether to be happy or confused.

Usually my artwork involves a lot of messy lines and paint and in general, I was not used to how formulated my art was with this assignment. But I am still satisfied with the result, because never have I seen such a structured art work come from my hands. I guess this was what I wanted to see, by getting into design art. But I also hope to be able to make use of my messy illustration style in future pieces as well.

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598302879/ on 24 January 2018

graphic form project 1 // research

February 9, 2018 / / 0 Comments

First of all, I’m glad to have this opportunity to be in Design Art. As someone who has had 0 experiences doing design, I cannot emphasise how lucky I am to be in the major I wish to delve into. I can only pick up a pencil/stylus and draw, so now is a good time to look into other ways of doing art, and to maybe put further meaning into my work.

I am unconfident. And it haunts me to this day, what with me not doing well in presentation and all. I can never be okay with what I create, and it stresses me out talking in front of a class. Reading about such a wonderful woman like Hannah Hoch was an experience, and although I can never be as amazing as such a big figure in Dadaism, I wish to have her in mind. I wish to have her works in mind — for how strong and stubborn she was in presenting society in the way she wanted to. Perhaps that will help me form words better like how she formed hers. It might not have the same impact but I wish to at least be able to say 5 sentences without sounding like I doubt myself.

On to the actual research!

Hannah Hoch

Retrieved from http://www.theartstory.org/images20/new_design/bio/bio_hoch_hannah.jpg on 24 January 2018

Hannah Hoch
A rare female figure back in the twentieth century’s art industry, specifically the Dada movement. She actively voiced her opinions on gender equality and often used photomontage in order to so. Picking photographic elements from popular culture and pasting it into her collages, she made many insightful connections that have people questioning how media and society portrayed gender. It gave photography and collage into a form of ‘higher’ art, fitting into the Dada movement in its development in communication design. Many other artists in Dada and in later generations started to adopt her style of collaging images.

Hannah Höch. German, 1889-1978
Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany (Schnitt mit dem Küchenmesser durch die letzte Weimarer Bierbauchkulturepoche Deutschlands). 1919-1920
Photomontage and collage with watercolor, 44 7/8 x 35 7/16” (114 x 90 cm)
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
© 2006 Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin,
© 2006 Hannah Höch / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, photo: Jörg P. Anders, Berlin

One of Hannah Hoch’s most famous pieces, ‘Cut With The Kitchen Knife Through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany’ (1919-20), reflected on issues that occurred in German society after the first World War. Words such as ‘kitchen knife’ and ‘beer belly’ were used in regards to the social status of the male and female — where feminine qualities were not equal to that of masculine qualities. The piece is seen as mocking yet whimsical, what if its exaggeration of machinery exploding and theatrical way of body language, making fun of the political issues that are going on in Germany at that point in time. She also hints at the social issues that were happening, placing a small map of countries in Europe where women were allowed to vote. With her obvious interest in representing the female population, she plays into creating ridiculous caricature of men being stripped of their power, often playing with how the message could possibly be perceived in her pieces.

So what exactly is the Dada movement?
Like with Hannah Hoch’s many confusing pieces of work, many other Dada artists did not work on Dada art for the sake of art trends, but more on propaganda, using many borrowed elements to create its message.
Dada art had a lot of techniques borrowed from Futurists, an social movement that emphasized on speed, technology, youth and violence, involving many futuristic industrial elements. It made use of typography, photomontage, negative white space, layout, etc to create an interesting way of communication, and along with its rebellious nature, created a very strong design image.

Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6e/Marcel_Duchamp_Mona_Lisa_LHOOQ.jpg/250px-Marcel_Duchamp_Mona_Lisa_LHOOQ.jpg on 24 January 2018

One example of such rebellious nature would be LHOOQ (1919) by Marcel Duchamp. Taking a cheap postcard of the Mona Lisa (1517) painting, he added facial hair and labelled it LHOOQ, which translated from french, stood for “She has a hot ass.” In all ways it was meant to offend, and showed a big lack of respect to traditional artforms. The Dada period challenged artistic values and creativity, and allowed people to question about what art truly was.

Russian Constructivism, and Graphic Design

They were all about the functionality of art, rather than art that was decorative and expressive that got hung on walls. There was high emphasis on the bourgeois culture, where people were more materialistic with what they liked.

Retrieved from http://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/F.jpg On 24 January 2018

Designs were mostly photomontages that were very ‘constructed’, and had very strong typography. Colours used were very minimal, often being red, yellow and black. There are a lot of diagonal and angled lines along with the occasional circles and images. Works from Russian Constructivism are often seen as very exciting. Similar to the Dada movement, there was wishes to change how society was seen, with their own personal philosophies on art.

Retrieved from http://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/O.man_with_movie_camera_poster_1.jpg on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from http://3v6x691yvn532gp2411ezrib-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/O.man_with_movie_camera_poster_1.jpg On 24 January 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research on unconventional tools

So first of all, I had to understand how to incorporate elements into fonts. Shirley mentioned how we had to deconstruct parts of our jobs, and use elements of these jobs to show our job.

Like for example –> mermaid –> fish scales + hair??
In the left example, the letters have taken the properties of a bubble, becoming bubbles themselves with their shiny, reflective surfaces. In a sense, the letters have embodied the bubbles.
Likewise with the example on the right, the alphabet has become electronic components and consoles to represent geek-ish culture.

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598313225/ on 6 February 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598312995/ on 24th January 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other examples I looked at:

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598312994/ on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/389702173997655494/ on 6 February 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really liked the one on the left because it basically represents a no-signal television, but there is no actual television. As for the right side, they are just numbers but they show the concept of “Mr. Laugh Comes Home In The Bad City Night”. Although I have no idea what that means, from the various numbers, it is seen that someone had a bad day outside and has come home for a good rest in bed. Wholesome.

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598302836/ on 24 January 2018

Similar to the geek culture one, this one is more on dubstep, and has several pieces of electronic music-related things in it. However, it is done physically and has wires sticking around, typically like how a dubstep musician’s environment would be like when they are working. It might be a little messy and have harder readability, but it probably held a sense of nostalgia for many other musicians.

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598405206/ on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598405180/ on 24 January 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jobs

We were allowed to look into jobs that did not actually exist and that was a pretty fun concept to think about. Here are some of the jobs I wanted to try!

1. Hair farmer

Basically it is supposed to be a hair plantation. A place where hair grew so you can harvest and sell it to people who needed hair. So after consulting Shirley, she suggested that I put the ‘farm’ on a head, and made it such that the hair formed in the shape of my name. I decided to use my nickname ‘CEL’ for this one, probably in capital letters so they looked uniform, as if they were rows of hair. Shirley also suggested that I put a singular flower into the mix to show that it is as if I was planting actual plants. She also suggested that I put a pimple or two to show that it was on actual skin, which I thought was pretty funny.

I looked up how people usually did hair related typography:

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598404259/ on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598302806/ on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598404367/ on 24 January 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a first note: I did not want to go around collecting hair, even though I was technically supposed to be a hair farmer. So recreating such a thing with actual hair was out of my comfort zone. I know art sometimes had to be about going out of the comfort zone, but that was way too much even for me.

Otherwise, I thought recreating how glossy hair would look on a head as a field of sorts, with strands occasionally sticking out like how the ‘e’ is would look nice. I will be trying to do so on illustrator and maybe editing it in photoshop.

 

2. Dream collector

A dream collector was basically someone who took dreams for… perhaps energy-related purposes. When one thinks of dreams they would usually think of a dreamcatcher which is known to help rid one of bad dreams or used as protection.

I basically wanted to weave my initials “CL” into two dreamcatchers, while keeping a simple background in contrast with the complex weavings in a dreamcatcher. I found some examples of boho patterns and dreamcatchers as inspiration:

 

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/332633122462800532/ on 6 February 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/37858453091186833/ on 6 February 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/320318592218177592/ on 6 February 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/178314466472776399/ on 6 February 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/13721973847695687/ on 6 February 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/13721973847695687/ on 6 February 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Emoji factory worker

It’s basically like a jewelry factory worker but with… emojis. I want them to be constructing emojis that are tiny and meant to fit into a phone for people to use when necessary. What I had in mind was basically this:

Retrieved from https://i.pinimg.com/originals/28/84/c1/2884c1726f367aa5bb228377cdfc90b8.jpg on 6 February 2018

Or something even more systematic like this:

Retrieved from https://www.dissentmagazine.org/wp-content/files_mf/1364821451shenzhenfactory.jpg on 6 February 2018

Illustrative conveyer belt reference. Retrieved from https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ff/7e/ff/ff7effa0051b02b3989dadc043d9567e.jpg on 6 February 2018

And because of its factory-esque theme, Shirley suggested I make my letters into a conveyer belt because conveyer belts were associated with big factories. With the emojis resting on the conveyer belts, I thought of how else to make use of the emojis.

emojis –> phones –> iphones –> speech bubbles?

Retrieved from https://static.vecteezy.com/system/resources/previews/000/107/859/original/free-imessage-vector.png on 6 February 2018

I could try using the initials ‘CL’, making C a conveyer belt while it was being transferred to L, a speech bubble.

 

4. Neurologist

I always wanted to be a surgeon as a kid but then I realised I was scared of looking at the insides of a person. My other option was being a psychologist but I was not the most patient person on this world. I guess I’m stuck with art. But yay I shall relive that dream now. THROUGH ART!! hAH!

My original concept was to recreate letters using brain bits, like how brains basically look like a bunch of slimy tubes squished into a bean shape, and then double that and squish them again. But I was given the suggestion to basically make a typography style where each letter was a head on its own, while the head was only cut slightly, while the negative space of a letter would basically still be uncut head. I want to try creating a layer where skin has been cut, showing layers of bone, guts and skin, while the actual word would show brain. Wow, didn’t I say something about not liking to see insides?

I have the option of mixing realistic looking styles for the “gore” parts, while keeping the head shapes simple.

I mostly took my inspiration from these two pictures, and basically hope to mix both mediums together:

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598302879/ on 24 January 2018

Retrieved from https://www.pinterest.com/pin/853572935598312970/ on 24 January 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

foundation 2d project 2 // final

November 21, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Before I start, I have to say this. Thank you Foundation 2D, for creating such a fun assignment. An assignment that I got to play around with after months of having not touched my tablet. It was tough getting back in touch with a digital medium, but it sure was therapeutic. It was like getting back onto a bicycle after years of not touching it, and wobbling about for several minutes (and in my context, it took at least a few days) before you finally got the hang of it again.

Well, here’s my final piece, anyway.

 

To be honest, I feel like I could have worked on it a lot more and played with colours more than I did. But I already had various colour palettes in mind that I also mixed around with by playing with the Hue and Colour Balance sliders on Photoshop. (Bless those sliders, I’ll give them my life.)

I’ll be honest. I never worked on OSS while doing this project. I had a few references that I spammed tabs on Google Chrome with — mostly colour references to the way people painted with, and then went ahead with consultations and drafting. So I’m basically going to stuff everything into one post this time, unlike my usual long separated posts for each category.

Maybe I’ll talk about my research, first. My three main inspirations are:

Tekkonkinreet

Retrieved from http://oomou.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/artbook-tekkon-kinkreet-6.jpg on 21 November 2017

I fell in love with the art of Tekkonkinreet back when I was in year 1 poly. They showed it to us in class for History of Animation, and it has been a big part of my art direction for awhile already. Although I still have not reached that level of confidence to play around with shapes that much, I have always admired the sketchy look that their art has. (Also, it’s a great movie. I even have the artbook.)

pupskin (tumblr)

Retrieved from http://pupskin.tumblr.com/post/165954839318/that-time-of-year-where-i-freak-out-about on 21 November 2017

Retrieved from http://pupskin.tumblr.com/post/166312942153/c-ya on 21 November 2017

Retrieved from http://pupskin.tumblr.com/post/166312942153/c-ya on 21 November 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a newfound love for colours done like how pupskin has done theirs. Dull on neon seems to be a thing they do which I don’t know why, attracts me a lot. It gives a slightly unsettled vibe to it, and is one of my colour references for my pieces, along with the messy work they produce that still give so much emotion and expression.

Skychair (tumblr)

Retrieved from http://qtt-art.tumblr.com/post/162861591759/something-i-drew-for-shunaos-gbf-art-book-a-while on 21 November 2017

Retrieved from http://qtt-art.tumblr.com/post/165228409149/made-of-gold-never-loved-her on 21 November 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another one of my artist references for their Neat Line Work just look at that glorious glory beautiful wow amazing. I also referenced the piece on the left for my oriental looking pieces (temple).

 

Colours:

Along with hue and colour balance and my general preference for certain colours, I used a lot of this cool website https://coolors.co/ to find pretty palettes to play with. As you can tell, I avoided a lot of pastels, and for some odd reason, had a lot of yellow.

I used https://coolors.co/

The yellow obsession was probably an attempt to find a good yellow for my highlights that magically became an iconic part of me, besides my red glasses.

 

Well with my references done,

Here are the individual pieces:

me, a huge scary bear +  in a social setting = becomes a small teddy bear

I wanted to basically talk about how my first impression would always be of a big scary person. Nobody ever dares talk to me, and when I ask friends they usually tell me I’m very unapproachable because of my height and general built (big). But once someone gets to know me, I’m usually just a meek person who is very huggable. Since I was primary school I was often called a teddy bear and till now it hasn’t stop, if I had to be honest. I don’t mind being a teddy bear. But once I’m placed in a social situation, where I have to be friends with people, I tend to shrink away really fast. So imagine a bear shrinking. That’s basically it. And I drew in a lower angle for the 3rd panel because it’s as if I’m reallyyyy small as compared to the first one where I’m reallyyyy big. And because I could play around with drawing shoes. That was fun.

Even though most of the scenes have a dark purple to them, I tried to keep an element bright, and the 2nd panel is seen as brightest with its illuminated human blobs. This is to show some sort of party element to it (social setting). The pinks that I used in the bear in the first panel were repeated in the 3rd panel, along with my glasses and my hair highlights to represent myself.

me, as a noisy vacuum cleaner + in the deep cyberweb = gets lost in own thoughts

I’m pretty talkative amongst my group of friends, and I also take in a lot of information from wherever I can. In a sense, I’m a naive individual, if you could still called a jaded, irony-loving person naive. When introduced to the darker side of the internet, I tend to go too deep, and find many weird theories about things, or weird thoughts about others. And that usually ends up with me too caught up in my own thoughts about things. I basically became a vacuum cleaner that sucked itself. What a sucker. HAH.

I went with greens and purples for this set, with a tinge of warm colours here and there as a contrast.

me, as a goldfish tank + watch satire television = suddenly intelligent

I have the worst attention span. I zone out all the time, and my brain is mostly empty if I don’t put in the effort to have something in there. How am I alive? I don’t know. I like my brain empty though. They always say goldfish have a 3 second attention span, and I placed one in a too-huge tank to basically represent me. Empty and dumb.

I have also been watching tonssss of shows that question society, and whenever I do that I tend to binge watch them. Like you know, watch 10 seasons of it within the past 3 weeks of school. And that keeps my brain going. It’s suddenly stuffed basically, and I now have this stupidly smart octopus in my teeny tank brain.

I went with lots of warm colours for this one to counter the water blues. My glasses and hair are still there. I gave the TV typical purple/green colours for a more ghastly villainous effect, and to show its psychedelic effects when you binge watch too much and lose track of reality.

me, as gyudon (beef bowl) + pray in a temple = eat away the sin

First of all, as some sort of respect to the fact that I do pray to this god, I censored her face off. I think it’s kinda funny still. I’m probably a bad kid now going to hell. Sorry Guan Yin. ):

Ever since I was a kid I was told never to eat beef. It was part of my religious practice as a taoist who prayed to Guan Yin, and I never questioned it and was even afraid that eating it would result in me exploding. (Don’t ask me why, kid me was convinced.) I ate beef once because nobody told me lasagna was made of beef. I cried really hard.

But as I grew older I asked my parents why, and they eventually allowed me to for the convenience when eating with friends. (It used to be so strict that I couldn’t share barbeque pits that had beef on it. No contact with beef at all, nadah.) Eventually it came to a point when I was in Japan and we were having food at a gyudon restaurant. And that was my first time eating gyudon, AND I FELL IN LOVE. I have yet to shut up about beef bowls. Ask my friends.

So now I live my life in sin. HAHA. Joking. I still pray at temples, because I still didn’t mind being in a religion, but I had my secret love for gyudon for at least 2 years now. Yoshinoya doesn’t have the best but it’s good enough.

Here’s where the oriental bit of colour comes in. There are basically a lot of reds in setting and in meat and ginger. Tiny bits of cool colour (bowl, Guan Yin) help to balance it out. In this piece, I did not specifically put myself in the outcome of it, but I feel like it works, like as if I’m fake Guan Yin and I deserve to be eaten (lol.) But I kept with having more yellows throughout my four sets of three to imply my highlights.

 

Well that’s basically it. I loved every bit of this project, and I felt validated for using weird wiggly lines in my pieces by Shirley. I’m glad we had this to buck up our painting-y skills, really. I hope presentation day will be good to me, because it has been a tiring few weeks thinking that my art sucks.

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr02/2013/1/17/13/anigif_enhanced-buzz-1784-1358445874-1.gif Retrieved on 16 September 2017

foundation 2d project 2 // process + final

October 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments

After doing parts of this project, I realised I really like it. A lot. I’m actually kind of sad that it is coming to an end in a few days. I enjoyed every part of making this assignment turn into a reality, and here it is! Based off the 4 quotes that I have chosen, a lot of my themes were very animal-driven, which I felt gave a very raw feeling, which was what I wanted. Said by the most irrational of teens, many of my quotes questioned the societal norm and related humans back to their nature of dealing with things —things like segregation, behavioural patterns, etc. I wanted my designs to be straight to the point, like how raw they all seemed.

 

J.D.: The only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven.

(Heathers, 1988)

I started off with my initial idea of using animal heads on human bodies, but it honestly got too cluttered. There was no actual goal going on here, and I obviously did not pay any attention to design principles.

I decided to keep the shaking hands though, and tried to portray heaven with some Greek sculptures instead.

I tried to go with a diagonal, like a slash of nonconformity, and ironically used Narcissus and Aphrodite as my subjects to represent the various “social types”. Decided to keep the angel theme going as well by using a baby angel to portray heavenly innocence of sorts. However, there was too much going on in this composition as well, so I decided to take one of the sculptures out.

Final Design:

Decided to play around with the visual hierarchy by making Narcissus extremely big in comparison to what was supposedly heaven (the baby angel) The hands are used as a barrier, away from where heaven is. It basically shows how it is nearly impossible to allow all social types to be able to get along. I also tried to create a yingyang asymmetry, such that the shadows on Narcissus would contrast with the white background, whereas the light on his face would contrast with the black part of the background.

 

Heather Chandler: Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa?

(Heathers, 1988)

My initial concept was a snake cheerleader and chainsaws; with a coif around the snake’s head to let a person judge if it did look like Mother Teresa. I did keep the concept all the way through my various compositions, merely changing the types of pictures to make the design pop up more.

I made the chainsaw into some sort of ‘sun’, as if it were a holy light source to worship. It could also seem like a halo, this is up to your interpretation. I thought it would have been cool to add some illuminati symbols too, but I realised it was honestly a bit too much. So I took it out.

Many of my initial designs had more half-tone images, which ended up blending the image so much that nothing stood out. Changing the images used helped me to better contrast between black and white.

Final Design:

I changed the snake again when I realised the first one was too pixelated. I went with a stronger half-tone gradient background instead, and used ‘blood’ to help bring the focus to the snake. It also felt like a paradoxical contrast between violence with a chainsaw and the actual quote using the term ‘gently’. The snake cheerleader was also made bigger; Shirley told me to take the armpit away. HAHAHA.

 

Penny Pingleton:  I am now a checkerboard chick!
(Hairspray, 2007)
Honestly one of the cutest quotes ever. Penny is such a sweet girl, and I wanted to justify the quote in a more whimsical tone.
First of all: I got to, I HAD TO. Hands and chicks. Hens and cheeks. Hands and cheeks. Hens and chicks. Get it? GET IT!!!
Okay, it has a underlying message. I know we were just supposed to portray what the quote was, and it didn’t need any sort of backstory from the movie, but I thought it was a great idea to use it as some sort of meaning. Like, it could mean that the chicks were being set free. After being oppressed, or for the chicks being kept in a little box, for so long, they finally have the chance to roam around free and do whatever they wanted. Or it could be the hands of Mrs. Pingleton, dying to grab at Penny and send her back into a world of the Repressed.
The checkerboards are self explanatory. I twisted it so it looked like a dance floor too. And the background to give it a more poppy feel.
Final Design:
After consulting with Shirley, I looked around for woodcut chicks instead, so that they stood out more in the final picture. I made the whites of the checkerboard grey instead, so that the chicks were the main focus, along with the hands. The background became darker, and I was not too concern for the halftone of the background to appear on my final silkscreen printing; but if it did, It would be nice.
J.D.: Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling.
(Heathers, 1988)
 To be honest, I wanted to use this quote just so I could play with a dinosaur fossil.
I used a explosion symbol to represent Chaos, and yes, of course, my beloved Dinosaur Skulls. Again, it turned out extremely cluttered the first time. I realised I kept trying to stuff too many elements into a singular piece of work, which often made no room for a nice composition.
Final Design:
Shirley helped make that cool background effect with half-tones, I don’t get it, how does she make it look so amazing,
I left the trail of blood at the bottom to represent the chaos and bloodshed.
I learnt that I needed to have a focal point to send my message across. In a sense, they always say that the audience is lazy, and you had to purposely give the audience a leading line for what they are supposed to look at.
So these are my four final designs! And ultimately, I ended up choosing:

TADAH.

 

On to the silkscreening process!

It was my first time trying silkscreen printing, and it was tHE MOST FUN I EVER HAD. I’m kinda sad that we can’t really do a lot of it past foundation year, but I’ll see how it goes in the future! (HINTS AT ADM)

I didn’t take many pictures because my hands kept getting dirty; everyone’s hands were dirty most of the time, so I couldn’t ask, but here’s what it looked like after the emulsion process!

It turned out so pretty I was really amazed. The grey areas managed to translate well, and there were still parts of the black background pattern that stayed.

Came time to test print it on paper, and I knew I had to use a lot of ink since there was a lot of black involved. I was afraid the pattern would disappear, but it turned out pretty okay.

 

 

The patterns all came out really well! I could see the half-tones and the values were similar to the original.

Here came the difficult part of printing it on the tote bag itself. I forgot I could actually iron the bag beforehand, and it came out a little different.

The background became even more fancy from my careless printing, and a lot of the half-tones in the hands disappeared. However, the checkerboard got a new, cool gradient, and the funky new background was not that bad. The chicks turned out good, and I was actually pretty satisfied with the end result. It didn’t look like the original though. I asked Shirley and she said it was fine, if I was fine with the end result; about how these sort of things made it art. BUT ANYWAY.

Lucky for me, I had an extra bag!!! WOAHHHHHHH. A drawstring bag!

This time I ironed it beforehand, and made sure the silkscreen was aligned well on the cloth.

I would like to thank my hands for being stable this time.

It looked EXACTLY like how I wanted it to turn out. All it took were some stable hands, your friend’s stable hands, and maybe an extra pair of hands, a lot of patience and screaming, to get it perfectly inked onto a bag!

The end results! Now I have two new bags to use, yay!!

https://68.media.tumblr.com/0c241c619240c9b89731042db984cc94/tumblr_nogjegrYd61r7pxxqo1_500.gif Retrieved on 16 September 2017

foundation 2D project 2 // research

September 16, 2017 / / 0 Comments

With Assignment 1 done, we have been immediately briefed for our next assignment: Forrest Gump!

So the first thing we had to do: find movie quotes.  And I had just the most perfect ideas in my head. I have recently been in love with musicals; and there have been a few really good ones that came from movies, or were made into movies. So I decided to find quotes from Heathers (1988) and Hairspray (2007).

One thing I like about these two movies are how they tackle various societal norms in the 1960s and 1980s. In Heathers, they made use of black comedy to talk about how suicide got overly popular in creating some sort of emotional sensation. Despite the movie representing something from the 1980s, I still felt like it was something relevant in today’s society, as if nothing has changed in the past 50 years.

Here are some of the quotes I have picked. In order to better understand the quote and how i interpret it, I will break the keywords down to aid my search for pictures.

And pardon the language used in some of my quotes. I like how direct it can get sometimes.

HEATHERS

 

 

https://media.giphy.com/media/ZZ8JgdJZadObS/giphy.gif Retrieved on 16 September 2017

J.D.: Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling.
(Heathers, 1988)
This could be interpreted in many ways, and one would be to take it literally. But I’m going to try looking at it in a more figurative sense, and put what J.D. had said in context to understand the phrase better.
He mentions how he wanted to destroy society so that it can be built anew, into something where all different types of people could work together in harmony. He’s basically referencing this to how dinosaurs became extinct; which allowed for the Ice Age to have happened, followed by evolution to have eventually resulted in homosapiens existing.
Without the initial chaos, nothing would have changed. And he was willing to go as far as to cause an explosion in school for that to happen. He wanted society to ‘wake up’ from its chains of societal judgement. He states it matter-of-factly, as if it was only logical that killing everyone would result in change, just like how the dinosaurs died off.
Now looking into the various keywords!
Chaos
Chaos could mean the Big Bang. Chaos could also mean many people clashing into each other. Chaos in general, is a sense of disarray. But what J.D. wanted was an explosive sort of chaotic. He wanted things to end. So chaos could mean bombs.
Killed the Dinosaurs
So the dinosaurs are dead. I can try representing them with something not dinosaur-like, but I would prefer having dinosaurs in my print. So I picked some dinosaur fossils along with some dinosaur engravings to represent them.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/cb58af985002f797bb5ad58cbde310ad/tumblr_oqqd738j7z1uwkhb9o1_500.gif Retrieved on 16 September 2017

J.D.: The only place different social types can genuinely get along with each other is in heaven.

(Heathers, 1988)

 

A quote that resonates deeply in me; as someone who has difficulty blending well into places such as school. JD basically mentions that different people will never truly be friends with one another unless they were dead, and thus making any sort of interaction among various cliques impossible. As a loner in school, he lives with his own set of values, often stubborn and unwilling to change himself, and often blamed society for the problems that came his way. He had wanted to blow up the school in an attempt to prove a point to his concept of ‘society’, as if society had done him wrong by being the way it was.

In a way, I had thought that it did make sense; I didn’t agree with how most of society worked outwardly, where nobody truly understood one another. Someone would commit suicide, and everyone would make a pity post on facebook in some sort of attempt to prove that it wasn’t their fault, and that they ‘had been there when the victim had been alive’. He wanted to change that; he had wanted to get rid of a generation that thrived on being superficial beings.

So here are some of the keywords I picked out and explained further.

Different Social Types

I’d see this as different stereotypes in typical American high school fashion. There are the nerds, jocks, cheerleaders, band geeks, goths, etc. I’ll separate them into more iconic parts that represented these groups of students in school. I’ll also attempt giving an animal representation to each group. Of course, they are not accurate depictions of said groups; just how I’d like to see them in a 60’s context.

Nerds:

Commonly associated with glasses, books, sweater vests, brains and buttoned shirts with bowties. Otherwise, there were also gaming nerds, who were associated with laptops, game consoles and headphones, or generally introverted/lazy.  Possibly linked to dolphins, pigs, etc.

Jocks:

Commonly associated with varsity jackets, good bodies, sports, or could possibly be looked at as generally bigger dogs such as golden retrievers/German shepherds.

Cheerleaders/Popular girls:

Prim and proper. Commonly associated with makeup, slim figures, pompoms, and gossip in the girls toilet. Could be seen as either cats, or snakes.

Goths:

Commonly associated with skulls, drugs, cigarettes, metal accessories, etc. Could possibly be associated with animals such as vultures, reptiles, etc.

I will stick with these 4 main stereotypes for now!

 

Get Along

Getting along could mean a lot of things. But simply putting in this context, it would mean living together in harmony with everyone in a society.

It could be represented by hugs, handshakes, or hearts. Wow, so many Hs. Just like how there are three Heathers.

Typically, getting along can be represented by peace. Peace can be seen as doves, the peace symbol, Earth as a whole, nature, etc.

 

Heaven

Heaven is commonly represented with clouds, pearly gates, halos, angels, gods, and so on. To be honest, that’s just a very typical setting given with religious annotations and context given to it. Would there by any way to truly explain what Heaven is? Each religion had their own variation of this, so maybe I could try mixing this up a little?

Besides the idea of clouds and an eternity of good times, Heaven, in other religions, could be represented by a temporary place of sensual pleasures, before being reincarnated. It can also be explained as paradise, where there are gardens, and families reunite happily over lots of foods and drinks.

 

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/webdr02/2013/1/17/13/anigif_enhanced-buzz-1784-1358445874-1.gif
Retrieved on 16 September 2017

Heather Chandler: Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa?

(Heathers, 1988)

 

An iconic phrase in the movie; that eventually got used in the musical as well. Heather Chandler looks in disbelief at Veronica Sawyer, as if she had just said gibberish. She then makes up an equally as crazy sentence, in a whole sense of sarcasm. And I live by sarcasm and irony; thus explaining why I want to use this quote. Bless Heather.

Heather, being the Most Popular Girl In School™, had her influences in all corners of the school. Her word was Final, and if she didn’t like what was going on, she could change it because everyone listened to her. She had her looks, and she had her charisma and she was only a junior in high school.

This gave her all the right to be a mega bitch, and she could do anything she wanted. She could curse all she wanted and she could grab any boy and have them smitten with her.

Mother Teresa

Aside from the obvious vulgarity and the even more painful description of being plunged deep with a chainsaw, she mentions sarcastically; the idea of her seeming in any way like Mother Teresa.

In a sense, Heather was like Mother Teresa. If anything, she had the charisma that was similar to that of Mother Teresa, how she’d be praised for things she has done, but also criticized by a minority for her various actions. But given her general lifestyle, it was probably better to say that she was an anti version of Mother Teresa.

Besides the usual holy things that could be associated to Mother Teresa, I could also make it seem a little more devil-like. Or just anything that went against how Mother Teresa would have been like, in all sense of Catholic Christianity. Of course, there should be limits to how I do this, because this is going to be on a tote bag. Can’t get too political here.

Chainsaw

Chainsaws have been linked to DC’s Harley Quinn and generally just manic pixie girls in skimpy cheerleading outfits for the longest period of time. It’s funny how it got referenced in such an old movie; as if it was also a thing in the past to have chainsaws on cute girls.

Along with all these obvious points, I also want to show how Heather Chandler was basically a snake in disguise, given her rude attitude towards Veronica whereas she remained disgustingly nice to most others. (Nothing against snakes, however. I love them.) Snakes were commonly represented as someone who was very cunning and two-faced, especially in many western cultures.

 HAIRSPRAY (2007)

https://68.media.tumblr.com/0c241c619240c9b89731042db984cc94/tumblr_nogjegrYd61r7pxxqo1_500.gif Retrieved on 16 September 2017

Penny Pingleton:  I am now a checkerboard chick!
(Hairspray, 2007)

 

 During a time when courting someone of a different colour was shunned upon, Penny Pingleton dared to announce that she was dating a black man on live television, and even  kissed him. Living in her house with an extremely overprotective mother, Penny was a sheltered girl who could never experience anything too ‘dangerous’ for her. In a you-only-live-once attempt, she yells excitedly that she was now an integrated girl who would date a non-white guy.
The phrase is literally talking about someone being black and white. And chick would basically be slang for a beautiful girl, like how people use the word lassie. 
I want to try something more literal with this one, and make a pun out of it. Because hens and chicks. Hands. And Cheeks. Haha. Ha.
But anyyy way. I look forward to playing around with the compositions! Hopefully I will come up with something that would look fabulous on a tote bag. 🙂