Project 3: Ego

Who am I?

That was the main question I had in my mind while doing this project. It had a similar self-discovery journey like the Emo project but I enjoyed this creative process even more because of the use of – COLOURS and of course, my own imagination.

INSPIRATION

I’m quite a colourful person. I LOVE LOVE LOVE colours in artworks so when we were allowed to use colours for this project, I L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y SQUEALED.

My Colour Theory

MATT MILLER

I love his colour scheme because of the fantasy, whimsical feel it has to it and even though there is a lot of colours, they somehow complement each other to create one piece that flows together. The use of pastel and neon colours allows the focal piece of his work to stand out and brings life to it due to the vibrancy.

Colours I have identified and used

PROCESS + RESEARCH

Since I’ve taken the mbti personality test, I’m an INFP but recently it’s been swinging to ENFP although I still feel that I’m mostly and INFP. From that, I used it as a basis to further discover what morals and characteristics I have. Listed them down and chose the four that currently represented my emotional state this year.

(To read up about INFP https://www.16personalities.com/infp-strengths-and-weaknesses or ENFP https://www.16personalities.com/enfp-strengths-and-weaknesses)

The reason for choosing animals to represent me symbolically as these are some of my favorite animals and upon researching, animals have their symbolic meanings too.

I had no idea how to use illustrator so I did it the traditional way by first getting the base outline of my image followed by tracing my idea onto tracing paper with details then scanning it onto photoshop to colour.

Stag – It’s senses are very acute and they see extremely well in low light, giving them the ability to understand the deeper symbolic meanings of things. They can hear a twig snap a very long way off. They are intuitive, often seeming to possess well developed, even extrasensory perceptions. Sometimes their thoughts seem to race ahead, and they appear not to be listening, to be somewhere else.

Seahorse – A relatively calm, and mild-mannered creature, the seahorse is seemingly content to roam the seas. Content to be who they are, and not feeling the need to change, the seahorse can be a symbol of inflexibility or stubbornness by wrapping its tail around the nearest object in order to anchor itself in turbulent waters.

Swallow – Everlasting love and loyalty, related to the fact that swallows mate for life

Polar bear – Fierce and strong yet playful at the same time. They pursue what they want deliberately and powerfully and are not afraid to show aggressive behavior for defensive purposes.

Furthermore, I included symbolic objects such as lotus, oyster shell, studs and feathers, each representing a feeling/ characteristic.

Feathers (stag) – Truth

Spikes (seahorse) – Defense

Oyster shell (swallow) – Protectiveness of love

Lotus (polar bear) – Enlightenment

Settings

Next, my settings is all done using paper cut and slightly pop art style. Also, with such intricate illustrations, I did not want it to clash with another intricate setting. Thus the paper cut style allowed me to retain a clear perspective. Although my settings represents the habitats of these animals, they also reflect my natural state of emotions – I’m only myself when I’m in my own surroundings that I belong in. This is the part where the I in INFP represents my introverted self because I tend to be quiet and shy in a strange environment. Furthermore, it’s all about nature as I find peace and beauty in it as nature is something that is beyond our control.

Forest – somewhere I can be alone with my thoughts because it is so quiet and peaceful that you can hear the cicada’s mating call and leaves crackling underneath your feet

Waves – beautiful when calm but challenging and deadly when stormy as the saying goes “a calm sea never made a skillful sailor” thus acts as an obstacle

Caves – I’ve been to a cave before during a school field trip and it was not only peaceful but it can be claustrophobic in the darkness so opening it out to see represented freedom

Arctic – the coldness and harsh silence takes a toll on your body but seeing the beautiful northern lights is relaxing and calming and is an out-of-body experience and makes me reflect about my life as something so beautiful is also natural yet we all have doubts about ourselves

Me/ Reaction

Truth – a feather from the stag is floating down the sky into the woods to reflect honesty to my own self during reflection in the woods

Love – a rose petal also symbolising love from the swallow is drifting down from outside a dark cave because to me as long I’m loyal and have freedom in my relationship, this love is strong enough to make bring me happiness during dark times

Stubborn – although I may appear to me mild-mannered, but when faced with obstacles or force, I’ll fight for who I am and thus represented by a spike to defend my own individuality during challenging times. This can be also seen as defiance to change as my mum calls it

Compassion – represented by the lotus underneath the northern lights as I’m carefree and playful most of the time but when things are brought into perspective when I’m relaxed, I’ll start to see how privileged I am and start being more understanding to others

CONCLUSION

I REALLY REALLY REALLY ENOJED THIS PROJECT because I could finally express myself in my own way and style and it pushed me to do my best in a short time span to create works that I never thought I could pull off. I really loved how everything turned out.

Project 3: Mis en Scene

FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNO

The descent to hell is easy

My group (Shi Teng, Vanessa Tan and I) came up with the 6 lines rather easily and quickly for this project. I had always wanted to do a darker, more sinister theme for this project so when we created the lines, it went perfectly well with my idea.

The six lines follows:

What do you see?

I see red.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Fuck.

I’m sorry

It’s too late.

This is my first ever film I’ve directed, produced and starred in it which I found challenging as I have never did a project like this and editing was quite difficult at times because I was still learning/getting used to the program (Premiere Pro). There was a LOT of googling involved haha. Overall it was quite an experience after seeing the time and effort placed into it to create a film that I envisioned.

The plot for this film is basically about the protagonist (Me) but she has a split personality and her other self is sinister, psycho and is fighting with her normal self to take over her. But who wins in the end?

The first scene shows the protagonist at the psychiatrist (Shi Teng) where the audience sees the protagonist as her normal self but something is troubling her. The next scene follows the protagonist to her car where she is alone and surrounded by her thoughts when she looks into the mirror to see her other self appear and frightens her normal self to feel like giving up. Next, the protagonist is shown running but the scene itself rewinds to portray as though she was running away from something which is later depicted as the fight for control in her mind. Then, the scene jumps back to the original running scene where the protagonist is frantically washing blood of her hands and apologises as though she is sorry for what she is about to do next. The last scene well you need to watch it to know who wins…

I feel that for my film, it had a lot of colour symbolism to it and I really like the soundtracks I used which was from Misere mei deus by Agnus Dei, Lacrimosa by Mozart and a Youtube composer, Peter Grundy. Altogether, it creates this power play in the film and the ascension to power with the ethereal choral voices.

My film can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/hI4l3mgAq5E

Enjoy!

Project 2: Impossibilities of being

For this project, I wanted to depict whimsical and fun and so I went to re-listen to my old playlist. There, I came across this song My Friend Has a Swimming Pool by Mausi. It has a tropical, summer upbeat vibe to the song which appealed to me because I’m quite a cheerful person. Thus after selecting that song, I crafted my images to it.

Originally, I wanted to have shots of glitter and jumping into the pool but due to time constraints and hectic schedules, I decided to take the photos by myself. I decided to use a penguin to represent me as they are one of my favourite animals and they are adorable plus they are aquatic birds (it goes with the beauty, pool theme of the song). Also, this penguin has a sentimental value to me and it makes me smile every time I look at it thus it was a good idea to use it in my shoot. Moreover, as I was doing the shoots independently, an inanimate object was easier to control then having me running back and forth behind and in front of the camera.

The video can be viewed here:

https://youtu.be/d6WmPGVlw5A

Project 1B: Sequential Imaging

HYPNOS

It followed the same storyline as my previous 1B project

[https://oss.adm.ntu.edu.sg/emma0005/project-1b/]

The storyline did not change much because how does one evil family take on a 180 degree change in personality?

This was the first scene which I wanted to capture the seductiveness of Nyx in a club thus the laser lights surrounding her. She seduces to feed on her prey which are humans who have succumbed to vices.

The second scene portrays her in the Hypnos, her club/lair thus still featuring the laser lights in the background. I wanted to portray her as a VIP like those VIP tables in Zouk (LOL) so I added the throne behind and skeletons at her feet because humans are her food. Also, people raving are added into the foreground who are seemingly unaware of the situation.

Now the whole family unites together to bring darkness to the whole word because well everyone is always hungry for more everything like power and control. I like the RBF (resting bitch face) this model gave so I took it along with the D&G 2013 fall campaign I think? Because they reminded me of her minions and also YAS to girl power! I took most inspiration from D&G because of this particular regal collection and the stunning designs. Also, there is some colour symbolism with the red, gold and black theme.

This evil family is going to take away the most purest place of all which is Mount Olympus and so the army marches into the sky, bringing their darkness along with them.

No happy ending this time. The Queen and Mother of Darkness reigns with Olympus in ruins.

Project 2: Forrest Gump

While developing my ideas and designs for this project, I realised that I favoured a nautical theme to my works. Thus, let’s DIVE into the process!

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Artist References

Otto D’ambra I was mostly inspired by Italian tattoo artist, Otto D’ambra whose works are surrealistic. He uses ink on paper to create his works and the fine details create a vintage woodcut feel to his works. I like his works due to the intricacy of it and its whimsical nature.

Katie Mccann She creates collages of strange hybrid creatures made up of insects, birds, shells, human bones, plants and fashion couture. They are part science fiction and part fairytale. Similar to D’ambra, her works are surrealistic and uses illustration to depict her pieces.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Why is the Black Pearl in the bottle?

Although having narrowly escaped Blackbeard’s attack on the Black Pearl, Barbossa had no knowledge of the fate of his ship, having only believed that it was sunk in battle. Though in reality, Blackbeard magically shrunk the Pearl into a glass bottle, where it would sail on a shrunken, churning ocean. The Pearl in a bottle would be placed in a cabinet, filled with Blackbeard’s collection of other shrunken ships in bottles, which was found in the captain’s cabin aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

Design 1

As I was researching on this quote, I stumbled across nautical themed vintage crest and I wanted my design to emulate a similar aesthetic too partially because the film itself was set in the 1800s whereby crests were mostly used then. The compass in the background of the bottle symbolizes the quest of the whole movie which was to find Captain Sparrow’s ship, the Black Pearl and to get it out of the bottle.

Design 2

For this design, the ship is trapped in a hourglass instead of a bottle as upon further research on the film, the main ingredients required to transform the Black Pearl to its original size were an hourglass, 3 goats and a magical tune. However, I wanted a pen illustration/ woodcut engraving design and the chunkiness of the hourglass’ lines did not follow my preference, thus I went to format my design again.

Design 3 (Final)

This is the final design I made and received inspiration from the film series itself as the quote I used was what sparked off the entire sequence in the film series and the characters’ adventures to get the ship out of the bottle. The insertion of the octopus was because in one of the films, their journey was almost destroyed by a huge octopus that almost drowned the entire crew. Thus this depicts that scene. I retained the crest theme as I felt it best suited the timeline of the film which was in the 1800s.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire This is an illustration of the Leviathan, the creature guarding the entrance to Atlantis.

During the crew’s journey and search underwater for the lost city of Atlantis, Milo, the protagonist and head explorer of the team realises from legends that there might be an Atlantean monster guarding the entrance to the cave that leads to Atlantis. Just then, their submarine was struck by an unknown force and upon closer inspection of the monster, the team realises it is not just a monster but a machine and virtually indestructible.

Design 1

I wanted to depict this quote in a way where the Atlantean monster overlooks and guards the cave. The main focus of this design is in a crystal ball as from the film, Atlantis is vulnerable to outsiders and I feel that a crystal best depicts this idea as the person holding the crystal ball can shake it violently and that affects the water movements in the ball.

Design 2

From the 1st design, I felt that monster looked liked it was slightly floating on the surface of the crystal ball so I tweaked the idea. This design shows an underwater castle resting atop a giant octopus which represents the monster. Thus, it is as if the castle is growing on top of the monster. Also, I used an octopus because it can be menacing with its tentacles and most sea legends depicts a giant octopus sinking a ship. I places fishes around the octopus and castle to show the relative size of the octopus and it’s surrounding, that the octopus is huge and should be feared which is conveyed in the quote.

Design 3 (Final)

After re-evaluating the quote and the film, I decided to change the design but keeping the fishes surrounding the monster again to show the difference in size. Since the film was set in the 1920s, I wanted a vintage scuba-diving mask to portray that time and I set it on top of the octopus’ tentacles to create this hybrid machine look was shown in the film. I placed a city inside the mask to depict the scene whereby the team had to travel through a cave to reach Atlantis but first they had to get through the monster/machine. Moreover, I really think that this design best suited the quote thus I chose it for my silkscreen printing due to the unique hybrid look that was also partially inspired by my artist references.

The Little Mermaid Ariel, please! Will you get your head out of the clouds and back in the water where it belongs?

Sebastian, a red crab and servant of King Triton, is ordered to look after his daughters – the princess of the sea. After the youngest mermaid princess, Ariel, saves a human prince from drowning, she falls in love with him and starts daydreaming about being a human. Being headstrong, she wants her way and is determined to find a way to make her wish come true. Sebastian discovers her plan and tries to dissuade her due to the danger of being killed by humans and the anger of Triton in failing to educate his daughters properly.

Design 1

For this quote, I wanted a mermaid coming out of the water and into the sky to represent the clouds. I found this image of a girl’s head with sea life in her hair and even though it might not be a mermaid her hair disputes that. Also, the expression on her face has a determined look and seems to be looking at something from afar which is like Ariel in the film who longed to go on dry land. The circular shape behind her hair represents the moon as the sky and the crashing waves symbolizes her true nature/her home which is the sea. Moreover, the contrasting images of the moon and waves shows Ariel’s conflicting nature of wanting to explore land but being loyal and obedient to her father. Although the quote states clouds, I did not want to do a literal meaning of the quote, hence the absence of clouds but the moon represents the sky where clouds are found in.

Design 2 (Final)

Sticking to the non-literal translation of the quote, I continued with the theme of the moon and space as the sky/clouds part. As mermaids are always portrayed sitting on a rock, I used the moon to represent that and it also makes the design unique and people would question why a rock. Furthermore, the use of a rock is very different from what people would perceive in a mermaid design and I feel that this is similar to Ariel’s personality as she challenges authority. I chose this mermaid as her expression is very similar to Ariel’s daydreaming look and creates this soft, ethereal look to this design. The waves at the bottom is representative of the core being of Ariel’s soul, a mermaid yet the crashing nature of it represents her father’s anger/desire to prevent his daughters from interacting with humans who poses a risk to their lives. Thus, calling her back to the ocean.

Kingsman: The Secret Service A suit is the modern gentleman’s armour. And the Kingsman agents are the new knights.

International superspy Harry Hart and mentor to his latest recruit, Eggsy Unwin are, standing in a Savile Row dressing room teaching a lesson in sartorial wisdom. He introduces Eggsy to the secrets of a tailored gentlemen suit and has one made for Eggsy. This bespoke outfit includes oxford shoes that hides a poison-tipped knife and a gold lighter that doubles as a hand grenade. With these, he will save the world as a modern gentlemen spy.

Design 1

My only quote that is not nautical and disney themed because it was my first quote and design. While watching the film, the Kingsman logo was shown and this is what is seen in the background of this design, the horizontal K. I decided to add a crest around the logo due to the spies’ origins that are linked with nobility. The tiny crown pays homage to kings which is in the title of the film, Kingsman. I used a medieval helmet as a representation of knights but added in a suit which was what all the spies wore.

Design 2

I felt that the previous design was rather modern and not vintage looking so I changed it to create a more illustrative design. I still kept the crest themed and logo to try and adhere to the essence of the quote and film. Instead of a suit, I used a bowtie to represent a suit and also because it suited this design better.

Design 3 (Final)

In design 2, I felt that too much has been removed and I lost the essence of the quote especially the modern suit part thus I brought back the helmet but this time placing a bowtie at the bottom of the mask to represent the quote. In a way, this design is similar to the first but I think it is best suited to represent the quote. Also, the lions holding the hourglass eludes to how the characters have a limited time to save the world before chaos engulfs everyone.

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Conclusion

I really enjoyed this project due to the process of printing it and the excitement of seeing your design materializing. However, I admit it was difficult to find images that was best suited for the quote and I had to change my quotes a couple of times so that my idea would be best suited for it. Overall, it was fun and a great experience trying to interpret the quotes and to see a certain style developing overtime.

Project 1B

In a world where the Gods who had offended Zeus were punished to lived among mankind on Gaia, Nyx’s divine family of darkness was one of them. The only way to sustain their divine power was by exploiting the weaknesses of mankind, thus she created a lair, Hypnos. It was a place for humans who had lost their way to be able to succumb to their temptations which came at a price, their life which sustained the fallen gods. However, it was now time for Nyx to hand the reigns over to either one of of her favourite children, Oneiroi, the purest hearted out of the two or Moros, the darkness that even Zeus himself fears of. The good to change the future of mankind or the darkness to continue causing chaos on Gaia? Her decision will change the future of mankind, her entire family, possibly even Mount Olympus.

I was inspired by Greek mythology during Art History lecture (yup, I got distracted) and I started researching about the gods when I came across Nyx who bore gods of darkness yet she and her family were little known of. Hence, I decided to create a story for them to let the world know more about who they are and that although they are rarely heard of, they should not be underestimated. Also, my story and it’s characters were taken from childhood memories whereby I really enjoyed reading books about greek mythology and wondered about how different life might be if the gods still walked on earth with us and so I might have just made my childhood dream into a reality.

CHARACTER 1: NYX

She is the Goddess of the Night, thus I made her gown as part of the sky. It transitions from the dusk which is the gold coloured part to night which is the purple hues as the bottom of her gown. Her facial features are young because to me, gods do not age as they are divine beings that have special divine diet.

I wanted to portray her as a regal being with a cold, emotionless face but deep inside her she is a mother and she worries a lot. Yet, when one first sees her, they are instantly attracted to her beauty which is also how she lures in her victims but they are in awe of this cool vibe she exudes.

CHARACTER 2: Oneiroi

He’s the cool guy next door and seemingly perfect and that is the reason why everyone loves him. I chose this picture of google as the model had a melancholy vibe to him which is what I wanted. This helps to convey his character as someone who is perfect and a chivalrous person but his deep-in-thought expression shows us otherwise and maybe he has something that he is hiding or wanting to break out from.

I added black wings to his back not only because Oneiroi was described as so but it further enhances this angelic look of his. The colourful pastel background creates a dreamlike mood but it helps to draw the attention to Oneiroi due to the contrast.

CHARACTER 3: Moros

I sourced this image from google too but I coloured the face of the model in black to create this mysterious and eerie feeling to this character as he is supposed to be evil. I layered the shattered glass backdrop behind him as being the god of doom, he destroys everything so he makes his entrance with something destructive. I tried creating this character with a bad boy vibe to contrast his brother Oneiroi.

I really really really enjoyed this project because I managed to convey how I wanted my characters to look like and I could show my style which I thought exuded a fashion magazine vibe to it. However, my poster needs to show a feud instead of just the mother in dilemma post.

My line is Emo

My pieces were divided into 2 boards based on their background colour – whites on one board, same goes for the black. By dividing them in this way, I created a yin and yang energy in my artwork. It is to convey that contrary emotions are interconnected with each other and that there is always a good in the bad and vice versa. Thus there is balance and this symbolizes that I am emotionally balanced.

To convey my emotions, I focused mostly on the use of texture to emphasize how I felt and to stimulate one’s tactile senses so that they would be able to understand my feelings.

Project 1A

Using the methods of addition, subtraction, substitution and superimpose, I aimed for my work to challenge certain laws and societal mindsets and to advocate for certain societal issues that have been ignored.

CHANGE

This was intended to create awareness that although social media allows us to gain insights into another’s life, at times it is taken too extremely. Increasingly more cases of people have died when taking their ‘selfies’ due to them being unaware of their surroundings during their attempt to take the perfect picture. Thus, I added in crosses, dead bodies and hands reaching out of the water to show the potential death that could happen when one is too self-absorbed in creating the perfect picture for the ‘likes’ on social media. An Instagram vector was added to relate this image to social media and I changed the username to stimulate the audience to think wisely and not follow trends that could lead to their deaths.

I subtracted the tuna sashimi off the sushi to connote that the overconsumption of tuna that has led to over fishing and the potential extinction of the species. Due to globalisation, more people has demanded for bluefin tuna for their sushi, leading to the occurrences of illegal fishing to meet this demand. This image wants to educate and inform people that the consequences of our greed has led to such issues in our society that we need to change.

With the current debates about the US gun laws and the Black lives matter movement, this was meant to be a satire comment – that guns are frivolously used as though they are a toy water guns and those wielding the gun aim their bullets at individuals as if it was harmless. This is to create awareness of the danger of liberal gun laws and hence, I substituted the bullets with water to connote what I have mentioned above.

To highlight the vast and rapid changes that Singapore has undergone, I used a collage of pictures to display this using some images that were taken by me. Even though I am proud of Singapore’s progress, at times I question that we might be evolving too fast that during the transition we lose a part of our history and culture.

CONCLUSION

I really enjoyed manipulating the images to create different connotation to highlight issues in our societies and provoke people to think and use their sense of morality to change their ways. This allowed me to explore creating powerful images with a different medium – technology and photography. Although I experience some difficulties in trying to convey my messages especially for the superimposition part, I hope with future projects that I will be able to improve.

Mark making session

We had a mark making session a few sessions back and we had to bring items from home that could be used to stamp a certain pattern onto the paper.

Newsprint, black block printing paint, chinese ink, rollers and palette knives were given to us to experiment on different techniques to create our monoprints.

1st attempt at creating a pattern on the newsprint

I used a roller for all the patterns on this paper but experimented on different pressure and angles to roll on the paint. For the leftmost pattern, I used a snowflake cut out and placed it underneath the paper. I dripped splotches of paint onto the roller itself and rolled it out to create a repeated splotches effect with a snowflake pattern. For the other patterns, I simply experimented with the ways and amount of pressure to roll the roller and it created a layered, textured look.

2nd attempt but this time using more items. — 2nd attempt but this time using more items

This time I used more items to create a distinctive pattern and layered them for a unique look. Through this, I realised that certain objects I brought such as imprinted pennies were unsuitable to create patterns as the grooves were too shallow hence paint became stuck in it.

My last attempt consisted of using both the rollers and items and it turned out unexpectedly nice because initially, I did struggle with the rollers to give it an even coating of paint. However, I preferred the faded look of the paint as each roll created a unique look whereby it was lighter on the eyes and had a rather whimsical look to it.

I quite enjoyed the process even though it was rather messy but it did teach me to work with a monotone medium as I normally preferred colourful mediums.

Superhero or super-bed hair?

Hello, I’m Emma!

Tried to look serious but ended up looking like I just woke up.

I chose to control nature as my superhero power as global warming is a prevalent issue now but little or no attention is given to it. No worries, I’m no tree hugger but just a girl who wants to save the polar bears, penguins and seals from extinction.

That’s why my superhero name is (drumroll please)….Winter! There’s an inside joke between Jaime and I with this name because as you all know superheroes always make a dramatic entrance so it’ll be like “WINTER IS COMING.” (Game of Thrones fans would get it )