Black and white;

Eighteen subjects;

Infinite possibilities;

 

The project began with just listing synonyms of the given emotion/topic, and scribbling down how each one makes me feel, or the consequences of that particular trait.

 

Anxious: constantly worrying over something; unable to calm down; feeling jittery; over-thinking things

 

Anxiety is not a comfortable feeling. It dyes my days in grey, and often comes in sharp spikes of worry; appearing, then disappearing; escalates, then tapers off; but never really lets up until its root cause is taken care of. These are portrayed by the jagged, thick grey lines that run across the strip, which sets the overall ‘mood’ of the strip. The ‘worry-spikes’ are represented by the darkest short lines that periodically and randomly jump out of nowhere. There are lighter curly lines that represent the mental circles I go in in bouts of anxiety.

 

Embarrassed: the feeling of wanting to separate myself from the world, especially after doing something really silly in front of people

Started this one simply as ‘wanting to separate myself from the world’, resulting in #1, disconnected swirls, that have smaller swirls in them, as if retreating into themselves. However, Shirley (our teacher), described the feeling better, not just ‘retreating into oneself’ but with more urgency: ‘desperately needing to hide’, which then became the definition from which I worked from, creating #3, #4, and eventually, the final piece.

 

Bizarre: peculiar, odd, uncommon, queer, with a hint of whimsicality in it

 

Bizarre has a ring of something formless, something foggy, something whimsical-like, yet at the same time strikes someone as, well, not normal; peculiar. Little continuous swirls and curls were the first things that came to mind. However, since pencil and pen were more common tools, I tried using masking tape to make the swirls for a more odd effect.

 

Exhausted: tired, insufficient energy to complete what needs to be done

Tireeeddddd…

 

Fragile: breaks easily; weak; requires nurturing, a gentle hand or patience

Originally thought of glass, or china, both materials that break easily. However, the other definition of ‘fragile’ prompted a look at living things and led to plants: young shoots and delicate vines. The cutting of the paper for the final piece alludes to the fragility in the creeper, that it is easily broken.

 

Systematic: orderly, logical, conforms to a pattern

 

Lyrical: Musical, melodious, flowing notes and interwoven melodies

Turbulent: swirling, crashing, shifting currents, torrential

 

Nonsensical: does not make sense; illogical; does not conform to any known pattern or rule

This can’t really be explained, can it?

 

Psychotic: insane, deranged, crazy, mad; all those with a sense on creepiness and obsession to it

 

Ambiguous: vague, unclear, borders and boundaries undefined

Distracted: unable to focus, attention pulled elsewhere, not paying attention to what should actually capture your attention

 

Sensual: relating to or pertaining to physical pleasure

 

Sloven: messy in behaviour or character

 

Spontaneous: in the moment; lively; energetic; unplanned

 

Aggressive: fierce, easily enraged or provoked to anger, violent, explosive in nature

 

Awkward: the state of feeling out of place, sticking out like a sore thumb, distinctly different from everyone else

 

Indecisive: unable to decide; going back and forth between choices, might lead to pacing

Unable to decide, continuously questioning myself, “Is this better? Or that one? Or the other one? Or…?” and each decision leads to another decision with it’s infinite number of possibilities and decisions. Inspired by a Vsauce video about larger infinites and smaller infinities.

On a side(-ish) note: experimenting with monoprinting and ink was really interesting!