Telok Ayer, developing a zine

After touring Telok Ayer for two days, I really wanted to base my zine either on the old and new architecture in Telok Ayer, or the ornamental nature of the Temples and shop houses.

However, it soon became quite prominent that those ideas were more common then I thought. Hence, I decided on my second trip that i would start looking around the surrounding areas of Telok Ayer, specifically Amoy Street as it still has the ‘old historic’ look that echos Telok Ayer.

It became even more prominent that the harder I looked for something unique to echo Telok Ayer street, the more difficult it became. There is not much left of the Historical Dock that used to be there. Rather, the iconic shop houses were made new, painted in various shades of colour, the shops now catered international food like Korean barbecue, Thai food, western, and various bars. The temples had self inserted gift shops and some became museums, or hotel fronts in attempt to preserve the building.

In its own way it is interesting, to see how much has changed. However, with the brief in mind, to ‘portray the essence of the street’ it seems my street is giving me a run for my money. Everything that makes Telok Ayer Iconic, I feel, is the same thing that makes another place iconic. I see shop houses along Chinatown and Little India. I see Ann Siang hill and Telok Ayer green, as small inserts of green spaces common found in every other place. Bars are iconic for places like Clarke Quay, and the restaurants there are no longer serving local food.

I would describe the place as commercialized, or a Hodge-Podge of things put together in an attempt to make use of the space.

Hence I went about thinking about making a Zine that reflects this confusion that I felt for Telok Ayer, and an idea that revolved around the temple narrative. Ultimately the temple narrative got rejected, because i felt that it might be too in literal.

I still wanted to insert the intricate designs of the temples and shop houses, but to keep the graphic element of the illustration, I decided to minimalise the style into flat planes with a single coloured shading.

I made a list of what elements I wanted in the art work:

Telok Ayer Green, the randomly inserted park, with statues of fisherman of the past. It feels like a tourism spot, but a tourism spot to chance upon? it is honestly not very well known place. I asked my friends if they knew where Telok Ayer is, only one response came back positive, and he said he went there to drink.
Ann Siang Hill, actually placed at the corner of Amoy Street, it feels a bit colonial walking up the hill. It felt out of place when you think of this unchanging place called Telok Ayer
The surrounding Temples how they are still being preserved
Fuk Tak Chi Temple which became a museum or door front for Amoy Street Hotel, coexistence of old and new.
The food revolves mostly around bars and restaurants for internationl food. It rarely reflects the traditional food that Telok Ayer had in the past.
The shop houses which are so iconic to Telok Ayer, we see almost everywhere else like in Chinatown, Little India, etc. They were also modernised and upgraded with aircon vents and elecrical boxes, which makes for quite an interesting sight.
There is a mosque, Al Abrar Mosque, which I felt was very isolated. I went there close to chinese new year, hence the temples were bustling with people, compared to that the mosque was quite and quite isolated. I wanted to go in but did not. It did not feel right of me to enter. i want to illustrate that sort of quiet, isolated feeling.
There was also a heritage center there that was closed, i like the aesthetic of it though. It was a very interesting contrast in comparison to the temples.

I began to sketch what I felt represented these aspects of Telok Ayer digitally.

I managed to get a really good shot of the pagoda that I felt reflects how Telok Ayer is. Its buildings rarely change, as it is being preserved for the culture aspect, but its surroundings does. hence i created this sort of digital aesthetic to the skyscrapers, which look as though it has been edited into old ‘Telok Ayer’.

I also wanted to illustrate the food in Telok Ayer.

I had realised, walking down the streets of Telok Ayer is that most eateries there are either Cafes, Bars or restaurants that cater Korean food, Thai Food, International food, basically it no longer reflects ‘traditional Singapore’.

(Source is taken from: https://www.wikiart.org/en/m-c-escher/bird-fish)

I wanted to create a sort of food patter which encompasses the variety of the street, like what M.C Escher does with his textiles as seen above. I wanted this sort of overwhelmingly compact illustration.

However, it was ultimately ruled out due to the difference in style. So I went with a more food wallpaper style, with cute illustrations of food on it.

(Source taken from: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/540572761507280597/)

However, it did not tie with the cover image as well. So I made a compromise.

Following the previous image, I had the ‘newer’ products drawn with lines, as though it were digitally add into the environment. That way there is this somewhat cohesiveness to the art style. Meanwhile the ‘traditional treats’ or food items that were used in the past but maybe not in that way are coloured in, showing that they had existed already.

(Source taken from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ann_Siang_Hill_Park_2,_Dec_05.JPG)

I also had the chance to wander around the streets nearby, and I was quite amazed by how the image of a place can change so easily from one street to another. Walking about Ann Siang hill was like walking in a colonial inspired park like Fort Canning, which would not have been place here till recently, seeing as Telok Ayer was more a Chinese settlement in the past, or a place for docking. Thus i wanted to show how the place seemed to new aesthetic wise, among the traditional shop house structures.

Following the similar aesthetic of the previous images I came up with this.

Subsequently, I started looking at Telok Ayer green which is like a self insert modern park in a small part of history. Though it was more of an attempt of tourist attraction with all these statues of the Chinese migrants of that time.

From there I created two illustrations:

I attempted to stay close to the geometric lines as a connecting theme in my work, but i felt maybe i did not do too good of a job at that.

Subsequently, i moved onto the shop houses, wanting to illustrate them in an ‘upgraded’ manner, with the glass windows and air con vents.

Finally came the temple, where we see even less of the geometric lines.

I think this image was the most interesting to work with, despite having one of the least cohesiveness to its image. I liked the interesting cropping, and so did many of my classmates when they gave me feedback.

Overall, I think I could have done better aesthetic wise if I had more time, because right now, the illustrations look as though they had more potential to be even more cohesive.

April 21, 2018

Playing Stranger Things

The Final Project

For our final project for Experimental interaction we are asked to create a social project that will allow us to interact with others. We formed small groups and began brainstorming what we could do for the interaction portion. Mostly our project revolves around ‘playing games’ with strangers that we meet on the streets, in a way to see how willing people are to interact with other strangers. The end result is ‘Play Stranger Things’.

Play Stranger Things

‘Play Stranger Things’ is a collaborative art piece where strangers become the artist and is tasked to draw a human face. The only catch is that each stranger can only draw a single feature of the human face, and each feature is dictated by the coloured sheet that they draw from our ‘box of features’.

The point of the game is to get as many people to play as possible, and document the developement of the image on an instgram page, @letsplaystrangerthings (https://www.instagram.com/letsplaystrangerthings/). Also each time we are rejected by a stranger we record it in the form of a black screen, indicating a glitch our collaborative work which referenced Glitch art. Subsequently, the final picture is placed side by side by a character or person a stranger said it looks like.

(Screenshot taken from our instagram)

Creating the project

Initially, the project took the direction of drawing a well known person, for example ‘Amos Yee’. However after a quick test run, we realised that even as art students, interpreting a facial feature like ‘long curly hair’ would take form in many different ways, and the resulting image will not look exactly like the human.

Hence, we scrapped the idea of creating a known person, and researched variations of each facial features, example ‘eyes’, ‘nose’ and ‘ears’ and have someone guess who they are at the end of the drawing.

The features colour coded:

Yellow: face shape

Red: Eyebrows

Purple: Ears

Green: Hair

Pink: Mouth

Orange: Nose

Blue: Eyes

We then put them in box and went out to Northspine NTU to conduct our project.

Reviewing the project

The point of the game is as mentioned before, the test the willingness of strangers to play and interact with other strangers, and so far, most of the people we approach are quite willing to be approached and contribute to the art.

Of course there was quite a fair bit of rejection as well, and we were intimidated by how busy everyone seemed to look, and sometimes did not want to intrude in their time. We also approached a lot of groups of people after awhile, as they seem more keen to play the game with their friends. Overall the interaction seemed to be more positive when in the presence of their friends.

We also ran into a group of sponsers at the Humanties and Social sciences building, which we had a trade with. We do their survey and they played games with us.

In Conclusion

I feel that our project is like Blast Theory in the way that we let pur audience take control of the project, and we let them interpret the instructions that we give them and react in the way that they want.

April 5, 2018

The Online World

Hyperessay

The third space network is a live video broadcast, which focus on broadcasting creative dialogue all over the world.

At the start, what becomes prominent in the broadcast is the various technical issues that appear in the broadcast. Glitches with the sound system, where the poor keynote speaker could not hear everyone else. Glitches in film, where the video would pause but the sound would run on. The speakers would sometime speak out of the microphone and no one can hear them. The intresting thing is how people adapt and make do in this highly connected world, where something goes wrong, there are a few other devices that can be made use of to keep the symposium afloat.

(An image of the group chat slightly after the first symposium started. The Key note speaker could not hear anyone speaking, so cues were given through the group chat.)

Day 1, 29 March 2018, 8pm-11pm

The first day starts of with Keynote speaker Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou who talked about the telematics art.

From Google, the definition of Telematic is the branch of information technology which deals with the long-distance transmission of computerized information. More simply put Dr Chatzichistodoulo describes Telematic to be live/liveness and interactivity.

She says, ” It transform the screen into a live encounter, in that sense it joins the space of the live performance and the audience, making them co-performers.”

This ability to link people in real time, gives the audience, once only silent witnesses to an art form, a chance to interject their opinions and ideas into the work, influencing the views of their fellow audience, and sometimes the work itself. In a way this form of art embraces the connection between interaction and the media. Once, the media had only carried the recordings of art works. The media then could not influence the its audience in that contemporary moment and time, however, through telematics communication technology, everything is brought into the now, no matter where you are, so long as there is a screen before you.

(Source taken from: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/hole-in-space/)

Dr Chatzichristodoulou brings in works like ‘Hole in Space’ by Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, to emphasis the potential that interactivity gives performance art. As we explored in a previous essay, ‘Hole in Space’ is a satelite connected projection of two areas in USA, one in Los Angeles and the other in New York City. The projection had first invoked curosity from the people of these separate states, before they started to make use of the opportunity to ‘meet’ each other, on screen for the first time in many years, for some. It creates a sort of unpredictability as various people come together with different intentions in mind. As such this experience, would result in very different reactions which creates a unique shared experience and can influence the audience better as it involves them.

(Screen shot of Dr Maria Chatzichristodoulou explaining the work ‘Telematic Dreaming’)

Subsequently she mentions this work ‘Telematic Dreaming’ by Paul Sermon. ‘Telematic Dreaming’ is done in two locations, the first with the artist and the other location has the audience. The work features a projection on a bed, and the audience and the artist can interact with each other on the bed through this live video projection. What was interesting about this work was a scenario Dr Chatzichristodoulou had pointed out, where a memeber of the audience had abused the artist projection on the bed. Dr Chatzichristodoulou had then begun to question the idea of ethics of such actions, whether this abuse would be considered as such, just because the artist was not physically harmed.

It made me consider the power of the third space. How in this day and age, how millenials spend so much time on the third space that it almost seem as though we could be physically in it. This kind of abuse, we label it as Cyber bullying, where one would spout or post various threats online to ‘hurt’ others but not really.

Subsequently, Annie Abrahams had done a live performance. she had collabed with a few other people who were from different parts on the world, relating to the idea of politics.

What i fould most interesting was the various voices and statements that were said, “excellent”, “status”, “3.961”, “144”, “excellent” “300,000 milliseconds”, it is like a computer comming online. Also, alongside the various images above, they would say various sentences, that they believe were something related to politics. It just brings across the point that in this day and age, it is so easy to connect and bring people of various backgrounds together to collaborate and make art.

Day 2, 30 April 2018, 8pm-11pm

The speaker Matt Adam’s had spoken of Blast Theory. Blast Theory is a pioneering artist group creating interactive art to explore social and political questions, placing audience members at the centre of their work.

(screenshot of Matt Adams explaining ‘Kidnap’)

His First example was ‘Kidnap’ which revolves around two voluntary members of the public winning a lottery to be “kidnapped’. Subsequently they were kidnapped and taken away to a safe house for 48 hours, with the video recording streaming them live for the entire 48 hours.

“Once you put on the bag, it feels very real” says one of the volunteers, “Like you are not in control of anything.” and it is true to an extent, handing all control to strangers, and trusting that everything is an act, when they do actually have the ability to make you feel vulnerable, to harm you.

(Screenshot of Matt Adams explaining ‘Uncle Roy’)

Subsequently there is ‘Uncle Roy’ which has two roles to play, the first being the people off the street with only 60 minutes to find the missing uncle Roy, through clues provided by a hand held computer. The second being the people online, whom can moniter the progress of the street player, and guide them by giving them instructions to where uncle Roy could be.

It brings across this idea of team work, and bring people of different communities together. It is almost as though they looking for Uncle Roy together in the same place. In the end they were made to answer a few questions regarding stranges, ‘whether they would help a stranger in a crisis’. I find this quite interesting, as it does reflect how connected the person is to society, how willing they are to help each other. It makes me realised sometimes, despite being so well connected, and willing to connect with strangers online, it makes some people reserved when meeting face to face.

Conclusion:

I feel that the idea of collaborating with others through online platforms has a larger potential to influence more people across various countries, so long they have the internet. The third space, that we have constantly talked about also has a various platforms and tools that can be explored to make art works more engagine and interactive. We consider them playful, and almost whimsical as collaboraters can create contrasting images, or interact in a certain way that goes beyond the boundaries of the physical plane.

March 22, 2018March 22, 2018

Travel Easy

Micro-Project 9

So we were asked to make a video for our alter ego. Mine is kind of a wizard of some sort, the detail are ‘hush hush’ so we are not allowed to talk about it. So this video is about my alter ego travelling home every few minutes because it is that easy to do what ever it is she needs to do and come back within a few seconds.

Click Here for the video

‘Uh, so I forgot to mention that every room has a few portals that one can travel by. I promise not to use them when I visit unannounced….. Don’t tell my roommate.’

March 20, 2018

What is a desktop?

I guess anything that can be customized would reflect your own personality.

you can see the educational ‘Ambook’ icon, which is an e book, I had a you tube converter, and many other apps that I used in school, its a real mouthful to explain them all. I guess in a way its, a reflection of how I don’t take to change that well. Subsequently there is the games that I had downloaded with my cousin so that we could play together, which reflects how close i am with my family. lastly there is also a lot of flash files and a few design apps on my desktop which reflects the artsy side of me.

March 19, 2018

Internet rage

The Artwork

Title: Angry Woman

Artist: Annie Abrahams

There is a total of 5 videos in the series Angry Woman made by Annie Abraham. In the first two videos 24 women of different nationalities would express their anger on camera at home, in their own language. The next two videos feature the women expressing their anger on camera in a single language, number 3 in French and 4 in English, but this time for only 12 minutes. the last one the 5 was a sequence of women screaming into the computer.

The review

Social Broadcasting can be defined as

The broadcasting of video, text and pictures directly to an intended audience through social media channels such as facebook, Youtube, Instagram and other channels as opposed to traditional channels such as radio, TV and print.

So why would this be considered a good medium for art?

(Screenshot from the third video of Annie Abraham’s ‘Angry Woman’)

First and foremost, it is unpredictable. In the third video there is the silent woman at the top left corner that illustrates her anger through actions and not words. She creates this visual contrast with the others, whilst their tone rises and falls with the passion of their anger, she remains quiet showing hand gestures like shooting the screen and biting her hands, to show the actions that we so deeply want to take when we want to vent.

(Screenshot was taken from the fourth video of Annie Abraham’s ‘Angry Woman’)

This also leads to the idea of contrast, with various women speaking and a single person only creating gestures it forms a vivid difference in that single video screen which draws attention to it. Subsequently, in the fourth video, where everyone was speaking in English, there was a single person who was screaming, or making incoherent bemoaning sounds. this hence creates a different sound effect to latch onto amongst the waves of others talking.

(Screenshot taken from the fourth video of Annie Abraham’s ‘Angry Woman’)

It is also about negotiation, where in a broadcast, one would like to synchronise their actions. In the 4 video, after about 7 minutes, all seven women on screen started taking calming breaths almost as if all of them decide to cool down together. Abit like what we did for one of our micro-projects.

When the performers’ Webcams were succumbing to technical issues, she transformed this problem by directing the group to intentionally turn their cameras on and off, creating a shifting, evolving, changing collage of images in direct play with altered configurations of the online interface.

Whilst this idea of negotiating and cooperating is apparent in certain ways of her work, the idea of negotiation can play a key role in making the social broadcasting fun (and covering up glaring flaws to the system).

But why is this done on social media and not the television. In a way social media is like a platform for a two way connection, where the tv and advertisment is a single connection (radio in some cases you can call in, but its still mostly one way). Anyone with a social media has the ability to take part in these works of art, in a way it gives like minded individuals, in this case ‘angry women’, the ability to join in the work and contribute it.

In a society where authenticity and privacy become endangered it is important to find ways to access our vulnerabilities and doubts, to make them public, to cherish our messy side. We need to make space for the beast in the beauty, to go back to reality, to claim the human.

Social broadcasting becomes a way for people to share issues that they feel strongly for, and be empathised with by a like-minded crowd. In a way, it creates a safe community for all to share and be vulnerable without fear of being judged.

Credits

http://www.starlightmediahouse.co.nz/latest-news/what-is-social-broadcasting/
https://thirdspacenetwork.com/symposium2018/disentangling-the-entanglements/
https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/18236/18237

March 15, 2018March 15, 2018

The Ghosts only your Phone can see

The art work

(source is taken from: http://carlagannis.com/blog/)

Gallery name: Until the End of the World

Artist: Carla Gannis

Year: 2017

Carla Gannis’ “Until the end of the World’ exhibition is executed like the ancient Greek theater where the ‘actors will speak through a mask’. in this case the ‘mask’ is her virtual persona, one like our social media, and how we portray ourselves on that ‘third space’.

The exhibition consists of various art works, like multi-media installations and ‘selfie-paintings’. She makes use of new technology to create the work, where visitors can ‘hover over the static piece of work with their phone to see it move and interact with it’.

Her works have certain nuances that suggests that it is feminist in nature, commenting on a woman’s place in society, and also on how society is affected by technology and the possible changes across the centuries.

(source is taken from: https://www.artsy.net/show/dam-gallery-carla-gannis-until-the-end-of-the-world)

The review:

Digital Identity: A digital identity is information on an entity used by computer systems to represent an external agent. That agent may be a person, organisation, application, or device.

I mentioned Carla Gannis’ ‘Selfie-drawings’ and how you could interact with them when using a certain app. In a way this character in the app has assume the role of Carla, and it paints a picture of how she wishes the audience to view her.

Its funny, because you can only interact with her through an app, like how people communicate via social media.

(source taken from: https://www.artsy.net/show/dam-gallery-carla-gannis-until-the-end-of-the-world)

But Facebook appeared to some
writers as angel, and some as demon; to some as an emerging
global village, and to others as isolation in disguise; to some as an
opportunity for maintaining relationships, and to others as broadcast
narcissism.

As quoted from D.E. Wittkower’s ‘A reply to Facebook Critics’, it is a form of charade, this idea of digital identity, and it becomes a tool that helps some people disguise themselve, a safe heaven of annoymity to discuss certain subjects or to be unbothered, sometimes to decieve others for their own gain.

In this case this annoymity also acts as a platform for relatability, to be placed in the shoes of this character, like what Carla Gannis is doing in her work. She places the audience in an almost intimate setting with her virtual persona and allow us to interact with it, as though we have been physically transported to the third space.

Credits:

Wittkower, D. E. (2010). “Facebook and Philosophy: What’s on your Mind? A Reply to Facebook Critics,” Popular Culture & Philosophy
https://www.artsy.net/show/dam-gallery-carla-gannis-until-the-end-of-the-world
Carla Gannis, artwork: Until the End of the World (2017)
http://rhizome.org/community/47634/

February 28, 2018

The Day that Cardillacs Stands up

Artwork Review

(Source taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch#/media/File:Cadillac_Ranch.jpg)

Title: Cadillac Ranch

Artist: Chip Lord

Year created: 1974/1994

Medium: Installation

Overview

Cadillac Ranch is an installation of 10 Cadillac’s buried nose deep in a line, in the dirt along route 66 west of Amarillo.

Its almost as if they were droven off a cliff and plunged head first into the ground. Now useless, the owners wander off looking for help and the Cadillacs lay, left there buried with their tailfins in the air waiting for travellers to chance upon it.

After awhile, the work was subjugated to the whims of the travellers, meaning they were either defaced with graffitti or ripped apart as souvenirs. Whats left of these cars are but a line of rainbow coloured skins of their former selves, rebirth into comic relief for a travellers amusement.

(Source taken from: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220)

Ant Farm

As mentioned by Constance Lewallen, in his writing ‘Still Subversive After all These Years’

Ant Farm — a collective of radical architects who were also video, performance, and installation artists but, above all, visionaries and cultural commentators — offers an intriguing look into the conceptual activity of the late sixties and seventies, a time that has proved to be seminal for succeeding generations of adventuresome artists.

Their work embraces ‘the latest technologies to disseminate its scathing criticism of American culture and mass media’.

In the case of the Cadillac Ranch it is a commentary about consumerism and maybe pop culture. What a car and a crashed car is in society. More interestingly is how members of the online communitty take to the idea of a crashed car.

Its almost Ironic, how one can act so indifferent and even gleeful of the idea of chancing upon a crashed car. How satirical their photos get when they interact with the car itself.

Decades have passed. The Cadillacs have now been in the ground as art longer than they were on the road as cars. They are stripped to their battered frames, splattered in day-glo paint splooge, barely recognizable as automobiles. Yet Cadillac Ranch is more popular than ever.

As quoted from roadsideamerica.com

And in a way it is quite interesting as it changes in an unsual way with time. The artwork evolves with evey added touch of a new tourist own creativity into the mix. It keeps conversations going, give people something new to talk about.

Sources:

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220
http://www.stretcher.org/features/still_subversive_after_all_these_years/
http://amarillo.com/stories/070404/fea_artbeat.shtml#.WpaDXK6WbIU
http://www.spatialagency.net/database/ant.farm
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/107284
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch
https://www.eai.org/titles/cadillac-ranch-1974-1994
http://slide.ly/buzz/view/0753e05835bf697ae7eee5b1329f801f

February 21, 2018

Let us DIWO

DIWO and Maker Culture

During our Week 5 lesson we had the chance to have a lecture with Marc Garrett. He talks about the Furtherfield and how the idea of ‘Do-It-With-Others’ (DIWO) has allowed them to achieve greater heights.

What is so great about this idea of DIWO though?

Whilst many artist are able to create artworks by themselves, DIWO brings across this idea of community, a sort of shared experience that can be felt amongst others. It becomes a more accessible art, and even in the case they are almost like volunteery projects that help the community, or ‘Values-In-Action’ as we call it in Singapore.

(Source taken from: https://www.facebook.com/Furtherfield/)

On their website thery have various workshops like ‘Design 4 ACTION! Permaculture Course’ and exhibitions all aimed towards helping the community.

It explores the extent of which those who view and interact with work, including those from under-represented groups, becomes co-producers in the network, rather then the ‘audience’.

(Source taken from: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-7000-oak-trees-ar00745)

When I think large scale community progects I think of this art project by Joseph Beuys, ‘7,000 oaks’. ‘7,000 oaks’ start with 7,000 basalt stone, each a pair to one of the 7,000 trees, were piled in front of the Museum Fridericianu. Everytime a tree was planted the pile was reduced. While the project idea was started by one man, it took a community to help make this project successful, and later the project spread further into other communities with this idea of wanting to change.

Maybe in a way, its because this issues are important to the community, which will eventually become the drive, all the call to action.

Subsequently there is this idea of pooling ideas together to create something better.

Furtherfield connects people to new ideas, critical thinking and imaginative possibilities for art, technology and the world around us. Through artworks, labs and debate people from all walks of life explore today’s important questions.

Similar to them, our Experimental Interaction lessons aim to nuture this idea of collaboration. In our micro-project the tele-stroll, we made use of the idea of the third space to create a video where two people in two different locations could interact as either a single person, or keep the company of each other. It is playful and brings together the ideas of two individuals to create something even better.

Even a bit more recently, there is the idea of our glitched art works, which is a combination of the ideas of various people. It comes out differently, sort of representing how different each and everyone of us thinks.

The Conclusion

Thinking about it now, two heads are always better then one, and thats because our ideas are different, the way we work is different, and thats probably why DIWO would be a good thing for the makers culture, as the ideas of many would result in something far more creative then just the ideas of one.

February 14, 2018

Image Making Through Process

For the next few days I went about illustrating my job in font. I didnt like the idea of scrolling through free font sites looking for a base font to build on my illustration.

The Sketches

This sketch was for an initial idea of the Chemist, however I realised that i too many options of which I was more interested to pursue, hence dropped the idea in its early stages of developement.

These were the basic sketches that eventually become the base for the pattissier illustration. I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted to portray the finished product (all the cakes) or the process of making a cake, so I did a short study of both.

These were the sketches that I had done up for the idea of the magician/circus performer. I wanted it to be very narrative with alot of things going on. However there were several factors that would lead me to change that idea eventuall. Thus the early stages of development had resulted in less defined alphabet sketches, but more details into how an actual object can look like an Alphabet. (Also without colour it is quite hard to differentiate the alphabet from the background).

This was the last of my sketches, but not the last of my exploration. I was really enthusiastic about this job prospect as there was a lot of things that i could play with to create my name. Different toys and tools, and I event had time to play with the prospect of creating my full name.

Playing with digital media

So I took to illustrating the Pattissier first, since i had a rather clear idea of what aesthetic I wanted to achieve from it.

I used Illusrator as I wanted a flat, pop art style that makes it ‘cute’. I did illustrate the two different ways that I mentioned above, one being with all the cakes all lined up as my name, and the other being the one where I illustrate a cake and the process of making the cake.

I went with the finished cakes, as it was more adorable, and it illustrated the idea of pattissier alright (my friends could tell what job it was, so it means I got my meaning across just fine).

I had a bit of trouble when creating the cakes, because it is not very easy to recreate texture on a vector system.

(Source taken from: https://www.thespruce.com/fruit-tart-with-pastry-cream-filling-995161)

(Source taken from: https://celebdear.com/product/velvet-chocolate-cake/)

There is only so much detail you can put in on a tiny illustration and there is way too many things I want to put on my cakes like the shine on the fruit, and the crispness of the tart.

Subsequently I illustrated the Toymaker idea in the form of ‘Doll maker’ again on Illustrator. I felt that by doing so I could kind of merge the idea of fashion designer and doll maker into one, seeing as both may end up doing this similar process (One making the doll the product and the other the doll as a mock up for their actual dress).

It is set in the workshop, as I felt that by showing the process i can have a variety of things go into the illustration, not just the idea of ‘collecting’ toys.

I did this with the similar style as the first. However, I had feed back to try and do something different, so I tried to branch out for the third piece.

The third piece has a mix of Photoshop and Illustrator. I wanted a museum curator because i like the idea of arranging collections as an aesthetic. So i created the halls of the museum in Illustrator before realising that if I was going to photo collage this, Photoshop would be more effective.

It got a bit messy after that as I started to piece images together.

There is a lot of things I can improve on for the composition, but I did not have the time to do it. However I think its mostly due to the perspective of with I based the entire illustration in.

I did the last one entirely in Photoshop, trying to branch away from over relying on the style of illustrating.

I had an initial idea of having it in a similar aesthetic as the first two but I was dissuaded from continuing down that line, so it remained like that.

So this illustration was supposed to be about being a magician or a circus performer. I was searching under ‘magician aesthetics’ for this, and ‘circus aesthetics’ when I came across a circus poster, and went with that as the main aesthetic for this final illustration.

(Source taken from: https://www.etsy.com/listing/87011761/vintage-circus-poster-circus-procession)

(source taken from: http://www.elcheapoposters.com/ringling-bros-barnum-amp-bailey-circus-poster-6-circus010.html)

I really liked the animal ones, and also it was easier to find pictures that would reflect the style of these posters.