Okay, so since I’m not really used to blogging, I did not update anything about my work in progress for My Line is Emo. Mostly I chronicle my thoughts and ideas in small notepads that I have and later compile them into my visual journal, but I will only be including a few of the key pages here. One thing is that I did not take a lot of pictures. Only afterwards I realised that it wouldn’t be good for documentation purposes, I mean how do I expect others to visualise my thoughts?? And even when Joy kept on telling us to document everything. Sorry Joy.
Nonetheless, this post will be an elaboration of my initial exploration, research, and thought processes over the past 5 weeks. The execution of the final lines are elaborated here! And for a summary of everything and the final work, check here!
◊ THOUGHT PROCESSES ◊
In week 2, we were introduced to monoprinting. It was pretty cool because I have always wanted to do printmaking using linoleums and the such, but never got the chance to. At this point of time, I totally had no direction and was just trying out monoprinting itself. I brought a bunch of random stuff from my room that I thought would make an interesting mark.
Left: Roller and block printing ink. Right: Me happily using the press.
Bubble wrap.
Hair roller print which looks like the sea bed.
Some kind of hay/rattan. Looks like underwater plants.
Toothbrush print which reminds me of reeds or tall plants under the sea.
From all of the prints that I made, I saw that a lot of them reminded me of either under the sea or the ocean. I thought that it could be a possible theme. I also felt that the toothbrush made a really cool effect (the print reminded me of bushes under the sea). Suddenly, a connection was made in my head! Why don’t I make the ocean my theme and bathroom things as my material?
You might be having questions in your head. As a child, I have always associated the bathroom with the ocean. Playing with water or swimming in the bathtub, I would pretend that I was under the sea.
While this experience is highly personal, I thought that the two are not too disparate for people to not be able to see even the slightest of connection. I was honestly quite baffled that some of my friends have never thought of connecting the bathroom to the ocean.
Anyways, I decided to pursue this theme and talked about it with Joy during our consultation on the third week. I did not have much to show her at this point of time. Long story short, I spent too much time thinking about how I should go about doing the prints/marks and did not produce actual results. The consultation did give me a clearer direction in terms of how I want to execute my ideas, though. I had materials down, so for the emotions part I instinctively thought of my trips to the S.E.A. Aquarium where I saw jellyfish and sea dragons. I thought they were magical, and they made me feel many different emotions at the same time.
From top left clockwise, tranquility, passion, peacefulness and excitement.
Joy suggested that in two panels, I could highlight micro (small) and macro (large) movements, using bathroom and ocean materials respectively. I thought that it was a really good idea. I could have an animal from the ocean represented in two adjacent lines using two different materials to express contrasting emotions. I consolidated this into a page in my journal:
Now my next step would be to gather materials from the beach and do more prints. However, I did not manage to make prints directly at the beach. I collected a few things to use for the next monoprinting session. Meanwhile, I also thought that I could use the lines to represent layers of the sea or different sea creatures.
In week 4, we had our group consultations. I shared about my ideas and problems to my classmates and Joy, and received feedback. Again, I did not produce enough results to reflect the extent of my thinking processes and ideas. This was one point that everyone felt I needed to improve on.
“Just do it” -Nike
HAHAHA more seriously though, my friends suggested that I should not limit myself in terms of materials. This came about as a response to me saying that there are some non-bathroom materials like bubble wrap and foam slices that produce really good textures that are reminiscent of the sea (octopus and fish skin respectively). Also, I did try using ocean materials like sea water, sand and crushed seashells, but none made any interesting prints. This made me reevaluate my choice of materials and feasibility. I felt that it was a good takeaway and told myself to really up my game this time.
That was what I thought UNTIL I fell into a pit of confusion when I proceeded to plan my next steps. Without the bathroom and ocean materials, what would the difference between the two boards be? How do I justify my techniques? What would be the link between the emotions, materials and theme? Should I scrap the two boards idea then? As you can see, I really do think quite a fair bit. I decided to try going with the bathroom and ocean materials anyways.
I continued making prints from some other materials I found at the beach. It was frustrating because I did not seem to be making any decent prints from the ocean materials. It was then I finally scrapped the usage of ocean materials from my project, not only because I was not satisfied with the results, but also because of its impracticality.
During the same session, I also played around with tap water, which I directly sprayed onto an ink-rolled linoleum tile. I really loved the results. (Sea water could achieve the same results, but they looked the same, and also I only had a limited supply of sea water)
There is sort of an ethereal, glowing feel caused by the negative spaces and the diluted vs concentrated parts.
I could feel my mind spiralling in 10 000 directions so I forced myself to focus and decide on what I want to do. I finally decided to restrict myself to only using bathroom objects as materials in creating my lines. After all, I could use the same object in different ways to create different marks. This was when everything fell into place.
◊ THEME AND LAYOUT ◊
I will elaborate on my theme and how I went about doing the layout and assigning of emotions in this section.
Okay, so at this point of time I knew that I would only be using bathroom materials. I could still have the two portrait A2 board layout, with micro and macro movements on each board, for example by using toothbrush for one line and a back scrub for the line on the other board (this was suggested by Joy during our first consultation).
However, I could also just have one portrait A1 board with 18 lines to separate the layers of the sea into. I felt that this was better as I could have more space to emphasise the depth of the sea. I thought that 9 layers were not enough to represent the sea in the correct proportion as shown in the diagram below. The journal page also shows my further research on the layers of the ocean and the sea creatures or plants that are found in each layer.
I then created another template which I used for the final work.
This is where I scribbled and planned the final layout, division of sea layers and also the sea creature, material and emotion associated. The deeper the ocean, the darker it becomes as less and less sunlight is available. I decided to visually show this by making my lines progressively darker from top to bottom. I also decided to include the horizon (sky and sea level). In accordance with this visual cue, I also arranged the primary emotions categories from positive to negative, with negative being the darkest. Every layer of primary emotion is representative of how I feel towards that part of the ocean.
I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the sea. To be honest, I am pretty scared of the sea. I dislike floating in the sea with my feet not touching the ground, especially if I look down and am unable to see anything. I am afraid of drowning, of unknown animals swimming around my feet (What if it’s a shark? A jellyfish? A crab? A MERMAID READY TO DRAG ME DOWN TO MY DEATH FOR HER AMUSEMENT???).
Basically I do not like having my sight sort of taken away from me and having no control. However, I also love the ethereal quality of the sea. I love going to aquariums and watching magnificent sea creatures swim in all their glory. I love gazing at the sea from the shore and it makes me happy. As long as I am in no possible danger, I find that the sea is very calming and an out-of-this-world place (I love the mountains too though).
Therefore, I chose to arrange it in this manner from top to bottom. I imagined slowly sinking into the bottom of the sea.
| Joy | I feel happy and content when watching the horizon and the calming waves. |
| Love | This part of the ocean is where I imagine most of the creatures I love to look at live. |
| Surprise | Creatures that are rarely seen start to appear, and I imagine being surprised when I encounter them. |
| Sadness | At this point of time I would start to feel lonely and gloomy due to the darkness. |
| Anger | The sadness would morph into irritation because of my helplessness and inability to control the situation. |
| Fear | When I am nearing the bottom, I would start to panic over how I unfamiliar my surroundings are and fear over the dark and the unknown. |
From here, I created marks and cropped them accordingly, being mindful of the overall value of the strip so that with all 18 strips together, a gradation can be seen. I was also conscious in trying to express a certain primary emotion for each line, and only afterwards I assign a more specific emotion to the finished line.
For the execution of the final lines and the elaboration on technique, check it out on this separate post!
◊ REFERENCES ◊
I did not have any specific artist references for this project. Most of my inspiration came from my personal experiences and also my previous visits to the aquarium, and my general interest/fear of the sea.
I did look at Rorschach for one of my lines, though.
Image sources playbuzz.com and drawception,com
I felt that the action of folding a piece of paper into two, creating symmetrical patterns, is quite intriguing and has the potential to create interesting marks. I also felt that a widespread effect could also be achieved in order to mimic the physicality of a manta ray. All the other lines were purely experimental and explorational.
The journey had not been a smooth one but I am glad that I pushed through! I am happy to say that I did work hard for this project and every line was a whole-hearted effort. I have not only picked up a new skill (monoprinting), but also learnt a few things here and there from feedback and from my classmates’ presentations! Thanks for reading! A fuller reflection is up on the execution of final lines post!
