Concept
From my tittle you’ll be able to know that my concept is the Chinese Ghost Festival. The six emotions, Love, Fear, Surprise, Joy, Anger and Sadness is subdivided into:
The main idea of this concept is “外面看里面，里面看外面” Outside (us humans see Ghost Festival) vs Inside( Ghost see Ghost Festival. I choose this layout because I want to create two side, one side represent Humans Emotions and one side represent Ghost Emotions. However, the bottom six rows is a mixture of Anger and Sadness because i felt that us human as well the the ghost both contain these common emotions towards the Chinese Ghost Festival. Even though I may not exactly know how the Ghost feel about this festival. But i make uses of traditional believe (Ghost one month holiday where they could eat, take money and have fun) and story behind the Ghost festival to allocate the emotions.
Medium:
Since I’ve uses mainly Chinese ink and White acrylic ink. I decided to play with the paper medium and I’ve realize different paper medium gives a total different effect even with the same technique.
- Newsprint
- White Copy Paper
- Black Paper
- Paper Money (Kim Zhua)
- Tracing Paper
Humans
Love: Longing, Respect, Devoted
Fear: Panic, Uneasiness, Tenseness
Love: Longing
This strip represent longing. The reason why I choose this mark as longing is because Ghost festival happens annually for a month and one of the day Chinese family would pray to their ancestor. And i felt longing represent one of the feeling human have, the thick to thin mark symbolizes that during this day the miss feeling we have to our ancestor e.g grandparents would get stronger and slowly fade away until next year the feeling of miss would get stronger again when the date gets nearer.
Medium use: Rambutan stem draw lines on newsprint
Love: Respect
Ghost Festival is a traditional occasion, now most people doesn’t continue this tradition and I felt people who continue this tradition is because of the respect they have towards this traditional festival. The mark on the strip symbolizes the lost of people respecting such tradition, from left to right the mark starts to disappear bit by bit.
Medium use: Mu Er draw lines on black paper with white ink
Love: Devoted
Devoted represent how faithful people is towards this tradition. despite being a modern world now, every year during this month the same routine would definitely happen again. Hence, the marks symbolizes people praying for the same reason/direction. How people look up to this festival.
Medium use: Joss Sticks dip in chinese ink hold and push towards the same direction on newsprint
Fear: Panic
During this month humans get panic over it because of the fear we have towards this festival as traditional believe that during this month ghost are being let out to have fun, eat and get money from the human world. The marks represent the panic emotion humans have, the messy and irritated lines represent the thought in human brain.
Medium use: Facai dabbing on white copy paper
Fear: Uneasiness
During this month when we walk alone at night or even in a quiet place we would definitely feel uneasy. Feeling eerie and uncomfortable. Hence this marks represent the emotion, the up and down stroke and uneven mark left because of the chinese ink and kim zhua texture reflects the up and down emotion we have.
Mudium: Joss Sticks dip chinese ink Up and down on Kim Zhua
Fear: Tenseness
Similar to Uneasiness, we felt tense up during this month. when a plastic bag is stretch the stretch marks it reminds me of the emotion tense. The mark on the strip represent the emotion tense just like the tightness we have when we tense up.
Medium use: Joss Sticks roll on black paper
Ghost
Surprise: Amazement, Startle, Incredulity
Joy: Satisfaction, Excitement, Contentment
Surprise: Amazement
With traditional believe when ghost are let out they would feel amazement when they see the prayer table us human have prepared for them, the ” WAH! ” feeling. Hence, this mark is make up many small dots and it creates a blur vision and a sense of surprise, i felt that this results shows the feeling of amazement and the uneven black tone adds on to the surprise feeling.
Medium use: Apply chinese ink on paper money, flip it and stamp it on white paper
Surprise: Startle
Startle refers to the shock the ghost felt when some of them see the prayer table, some table are filled with amazing prayers good whereas some had nothing. In design principal we learn that the tone and value can differentiate different meaning in this design, the different black tone shows the little jerks of shock emotions the ghost feels.
Medium use: Joss sticks roll on tracing paper
Surprise: Incredulity
Incredulity means the disbelief ghost have when they come out and realizes no one or family member there to pray them. When we are in shock of disbelief our mind tends to be in a messed, so this strips represent the messed thought they have in their mind.
Medium use: Dao Gi dabbing on Kim Zhua
Joy: Satisfaction
This strip represent satisfaction. Traditional believe that the throat of the ghost are being narrow when they are in hell, during the ghost festival gods would open up the throat of these ghost for them to eat and hence, they would feel satisfied whenever they filled themselves with food during this month.
Medium use: Joss sticks draw in circular motion on black paper
Joy: Excitement
This strip it’s pretty direct show of the emotion. When i try out this medium with the whacking technique the mark straight away reflects the emotion of excitement. Just like us humans when we are let out to party we would definitely feel excited and this apply to the ghost as well.
Medium use: Facai whacking on black paper
Joy: Contentment
When the ghost receive money, they would definitely feel contented. I have no idea how they spend but just like us humans we also feel contented. If you look closer the mark looks like little human jumping silhouette and that to me feels like contentment.
Medium use: Longan Stem dotting on white paper
Common Emotions
Anger: Hate, Jealousy, Vengeful
Sadness: Grief, Suffering, Loneliness
Anger: Hate
Using the principal of design the color can reflects warm and cold tone. The same technique is use to create the strip hate and suffering, however creating it on different medium can gives a different emotion. The white paper reflects a cold feeling whereby it shows the hate humans felts toward this festival, some people feel it’s polluting the air by burning incense paper, and l creates litter to our environment. and ghost would hate because of the lingering feeling they have towards the human world.
Medium use: Candle Wax portion dip in chinese ink and roll on white paper
Sadness: Grief
The splatter effect on the tracing paper created the emotion grief. Humans belief that in these ghost there is their family members. and hence during this month they would feel sad and grief. Ghost also feel this way because once they were humans and they would also missed their family. I uses chinese ink on tracing paper because the diluted watery chinese ink would created a glossy effect on tracing when dry. Hence, it kind of symbolizes the tears of humans
Medium use: Longan stem dip in ink and flick the longan stem with fingers.
Sadness: Suffering
The same technique is use for this strip and the hate strip however when creating it on kim Zhua, it red tone gives a more warm feeling just like suffering it felt more bloody and harsh compare to white paper. Humans and ghost both suffers during this month, humans felt the environment being polluted and ghost felt suffering when they misses the human world.
Medium use: Candle Wax portion dip in chinese ink and roll on Kim Zhua
Sadness: Loneliness
When experimenting around i suddenly remember the principal of design when many dots are close together instead of looking them individually you look at them in groups. Just like loneliness, they seems like there is alot of them and people around you but actually your alone. Just like ghost do feel lonely even though they are all in groups because their family members are in human world. and human feel lonely because their love one may have pass on and they are left behind.
Medium use: Candle tip dip in chinese ink and dot on Kim Zhua
Anger: Jealousy
Ghost would feel jealous because they are once humans and so this strip with the skinny lines would represent the jealousy thought slowly eating up their mind
Medium use: Joss Sticks red part zig zag motion on black paper.
Anger: Vengeful
The messy lines shows the emotion vengeful the ghost have. It it messed up, complicated, dark and mystery. Very harsh in tone and mind would be lost in thought. Just like some ghost would have vengeance on the human world.
Medium use: Facai circular motion on newsprint
Our Critic Day:
A BIG THANK YOU TO THE CLASSMATES THAT LEFT ME ENCOURAGING NOTES!! SO GRATEFUL AS WELL AS JOY FOR THE COMMENT!!:)
p.s someone ask me to burn for him/her. Who ar?
Behind The Scene
Tips: Change your blade before cutting them! It would save your life!!!!!!!!!!!!
