Illustration For Designer: Self-Portrait (Final)

THIS IS MY FINAL COMPOSITION:)

I am really happy with the final outcome because I have never tried adding so many different elements onto a paper cut composition before and I’m really glad that I tried it:)

Hair: The reason why I uses Chinese paper cut is because I love my Chinese culture, the traditions, the arts, the festival:)

Face: the crochet face represent my character as a slow person. I’m frequently in daze and lost in situation. doing my work slowly but still manage to hand them up on time. But because I’m slow I often had to give up my time for other things

Eyebrows: I use flocking powder as the texture of my eyebrows because I draw my eyebrows. However, they are always uneven and not in proportions:) So I go around with uneven eyebrows no matter how hard I tried to learn the way of drawing eyebrows. But sometimes, I do have good Eyebrows day!:)

U shape Cheeks: My friends around me always say that I have fishball like cheeks round and red, So I thought well.. that’s my part of my unique features I suppose:) 

Small Lips: The reason why I drew my mouth in such a small size is not because I have a small mouth, but instead I think I have a big round face which make my mouth look small and tiny:)

Eyes: (I’m being really thick skin, but I am blessed with big eyes and long eyelashes which I think was my most pretty part of my face:) omg.. I feel like smacking myself.

Wide gap In my Fringe: I think this is a common problem around girls with bangs, we tend to have this wide open gap in between out fringe that slip them into two part! argh!

Earrings: I have this pair of tassel earrings that I’ve been wearing frequently, and also to show that I love loonngg Earrings:):)

Shirts in two colours: The reason why in my composition I have a shirt with two colours and the collar area the colour are opposite again. It is because I would like to show the idea that I have Identical shirts in numerous colours:) You would definitely find a duplicate shirt in another colour or a few more other colour in my wardrobe:) And also the pattern on my shirt can shows the idea of it being the same shirt in different colour:)

Gin Bottle design on my shirt: This is a little fun fact about my name:) Not that I am an alcoholic who favors Gin but because Gin is my mother favorite spirit and that’s why she Incorporated Gin in my name “Ng Gi GIN Rachel” -.-“

Overall, I am really happy and had an really fun time crafting out a self portrait of myself. We have always been doing project with certain theme and topic but this time round I got to sit down infront of a mirror and jot down the various feature and character about myself. And trying paper cut using different medium was challenging but it help me learn something new that I never thought that I could manage:) Overall – HAPPY!

 

Illustration For Designer: Self-Portrait (Process)

So I chose different material to represent different traits of me. Materials I chose are yarn, flocking powder, Chinese paper cut, stamp gin bottle, colored paper.
So here are the process of my work:)

  
I started off by drafting out various drawing of my face in a quirky style.
Before finalizing my concept, I did a try out of the composition to be sure that the style and material would fit well together.
 
After the try out I relized that using cotton was not a really nice choice because the effect in not consistent and the it make the whole composition look cheap. As an alternative, my friend suggested that I could crochet. I think its a really good idea and i tried it out by pasting the the yarn onto the paper and add abit of make up blush onto the cheeks to bring out the soft and 3d effect.
 
Adding Blush!:)
 
Then i was searching for a way to incorporate the gin bottle from my name into the composition, so I thought, why not make them as the print of my shirt design, I believe by doing so it could also bring out the idea that it is the same shirt with different colour. I get the design out –> scan them –> print it out –> transfer to stamping rubber –> cut out the design and stamp onto my shirt:)
 
To recreate the tassel wearings who I wore, I make them out of DMC thread for stitching. As well as laying them over my composition to make sure it does not steal the attention away from the face despite it being an pop out item.
 
I first cut out the internal part of my face as well as my hair and I overlay the composition onto the Chinese paper cut and cut out the pattern/shape that fit into the white space of my hair.
  
 
After I’m done with my hair I proceed to crochet out my face, how I did is that I first have a white piece of paper as an measurement guide to tell me how long and how wide I have to crochet so that it would be enough to cover my face.
  
  
Before cutting out the crochet for the face, I went on to do the flocking powder for my uneven eyebrows. I first trace out the eyebrows shape and then proceed by applying glue onto the surface and then pouring the powder onto the glue and only the glued part would be stick on to form the shape of the eyebrows.
  
  
Back to the face. In order to make sure that my crochet face does not fray open after I cut them, I first stick them on to a piece of paper using spray mount. Then i tried cutting it with a xacto knife to the intended shape. BUT IT IS SOOO HARD!! Even though the knife was really really sharp, but because of the thickness and complicated shape. I had to use a scissor instead. and lastly, I trim and clean up the edges by spraying spray mount and stick them up. Out of the whole composition, I would say this was the hardest part.
  
  
I followed by adding strips of knitted yarn to filled up the “face” in between the hair, Cutting out the cheeks, eyes, mouth and nose and stick them onto the crochet face. And lastly adding the pinkish “cheeks” to finish up the whole composition:)

VIEW NEXT POST FOR MY FINALLL!!!:)

Illustration For Designer: Self-Portrait (Research)

PINTEREST!! first choice for research:) But before that, to give me a better direction I written down a list of words that best represent myself and who I am as a person. (p.s, you’ll have to be thick skin when writing:))

I am a very simple person, I love simple design simple decoration or sometimes as my mom would phrase it “boring” but I also have a quirky personality, liking weird, creepy, disgusting stuff and not afraid to share my “should be hidden embarrassed side of me” 🙂 

Having decided on the style of my illustration I began researching on the style and inspiration I would like go towards. Some inspiration I have below:)

Since this project is about presenting who I am, and I really like traditional medium. I choose to do paper-cut, and also incorporating and making-use of materials to represent the different personalities I have on my list. As materials have different texture, different “meaning” and different characteristic.

VIEW NEXT POST FOR MY PROCESS!!