My Line is Emo

Final composition – more crowded, detailed pieces concentrated on one board & simpler, minimalist pieces on the other.

1 – Psychotic

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Mixture of block printing ink and white glue

Somehow, somewhen, the imagery of the Rorschach test has always been associated with issues related to the mind; of psychosis, of being unstable and unsound, so I experimented with the technique to create Psychosis. I like how it turned out in the end – circles of varying sizes juxtaposed against each other – there is a sort of movement that insinuates the spreading out of the blackness, that each circle will grow to consume the entire page, of madness, of psychosis.


2 – Gloom

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Indian ink and salt

I imagine Gloom as a storm cloud that hangs around a person and envelopes a person, contributing to their sadness. With this, I experimented with salt and ink to see the effect of dehydration.


3 – Arousal

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Shaving cream and indian ink

Arousal is a sort of slow, fluid building of passion, that swirls then spreads; like warm tea in the tummy. I wanted to use this subtler piece, rather than a more intense kind of print (see below, art card) as I wanted to portray arousal as a more positive than a negative emotion.

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Different papers take to the ink differently. Art card seems to be the best in capturing the complete nuances of detail in the foam. The final piece submitted is on watercolour paper, which holds little of the ink and gives off a more positive vibe than the art card above.

4 – Agony

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White glue, indian ink and rubbing alcohol

I picture Agony to be a swirling mass of intense pain; of grief. Unlike gloom, which still has a certain softness about it, agony is dirty, gritty and ugly. I used white glue as the vessel for this particular piece, and indian ink mixed with alcohol to create the gritty mixture (polar & non-polar mixtures create happy little accidents). I also tilted the surface of the table by just a tad, so that the slow movement of the glue towards one end could be captured – as of the swirling mass of grief was captured, frozen in time.

I actually really liked the circular composition in the last photo, but unfortunately, life throws you a project brief so you gotta follow that.


5 – Contentment

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White chalk

Puffiness represents the fullness of the heart; of tranquility. I also left a margin of negative space on the left-hand side and tapered the pattern towards the bottom of the strip to imply an outward motion, of flattening and tendency towards succumbing to gravity – absolute relenquishing of control; of feeling content.


6 – Saudade

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White pen

Saudade is Portuguese for a sense of longing – specifically longing for a love that has been lost, a yearning that is underlined with grief and pain. Longing almost always evoke fluid, far reaching lines, as if hands grabbing for something. In Saudade, the lines and shakey, broken, and numerous in number to imply an unsteadiness of the heart. Shakey concentric circles also dominate the right side of the composition, to draw our attention to the centre of it all – where pain is most intense. There is a void of empty space – an emptiness that you feel (to have lost a love).

I chose white on black (as opposed to black on white) to dark the composition so as to imply a more negative overall image. In addition, I feel that pain is sometimes a selfish kind of thing too – you kind of block out everything around you, and only your pain matters, and only you matter.


7 – Bewilderment

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Block printing ink, footprints on paper

Originally, I wanted to do a piece that represented “Unsteadiness” and in all sense of the word, I blindfolded myself and depended on another person to guide me as I created marks using my feet (by walking on paper). However, it didn’t turn out as well as I expected and the final print came out looking more steady than unsteady.

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Final print looked very certain, confident

Therefore, I changed my approach and relinquished total control to the other person, and let the person guide me (this time, on my tippy toes to evoke more unsteadiness) and direct me in doing whatever he/she wanted me to. I was rather bewildered with Josiah’s commands – “And you shake it all about”, “Now do a twirl”, “Large, heavy steps” as he guided me in creating my print, but am very pleased with the result –

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Bewildered, relinquishing control of the medium to a 3rd party

Collections of close ups:


8 – Exhilaration

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String, chinese ink

Exhilaration is the sort of excitement and joy that makes you want to dance; to spin, to whirl to feel the wind under your arms. I played with some mark making here, taking an inked string and spinning it around to see what marks it created on the paper.

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9 – Disoriented

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Bubble wrap, chinese ink

Disorientation is result of exhilaration – the result of dizziness. The concentric circles imply a sort of roundabout motion, and as they are spaced out, it is almost as if you are stumbling, and the variation of size suggests an ebb and flow of dizziness, as if the feeling changes in intensity as one stumbles.


10 – Darude 

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Needle, white thread

Spanish for – the mysterious power that a work of art has to deeply move a person. I think good art for me really impresses, be it aesthetically, conceptually or through the craftsmanship involved in creating a work. I’m almost always very taken by work that shows an immense about of tediousness and effort, but in a subtle, effortless manner (white on white).


11 – Longing

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Paper cut

The kind of secret longing and desire that you feel for someone or something is one that is subtle and hidden (white on white). It is also soft and fluid, hence the organic lines that stretch outwards – reaching, longing, wanting.


12 – Drunk

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Mixture of block printing ink, white glue, acrylic paint etc. (all the white paints)

Drunkenness comes with some sense disorientation as well, of staggering and stumbling and not being in control of your own movement, and ultimately losing all control and collapsing in a heap at the end of the path.


13 – Grouchiness

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Graphite pencil

The most intense moment of grouchiness for me is when I’ve been sleep deprived and still awake at 4 in the morning. It’s really frustrating – especially when I’m trying to do work (when I need to do work) and there’s just a haze in front of my eyes, and there’s white noise buzzing in my head. But that’s the thing – it’s happening inside my head, and no one else will be able to see it. And vice versa – sometimes you can’t see that someone is sleep deprived.


14 – Wonder

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Mixture of water, soap and indian ink

Wonder plays on the sense of childhood curiosity and innocence, of purity. As such, I wanted to experiment with bubbles as a very delicate medium, to see the patterns created when the bubble lands on the paper and pops. Due to the soap and water mixture, the pattern imprinted on the paper captures nuanced swirls and makes the print look almost like a planet, which I really liked as well and plays to the idea of wonder – of the vastness of the universe, and things that are yet to be discovered.

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Other pieces that didn’t make the cut – the pop of the bubbles were too violent and created large splatters of droplets on the paper, which bordered on portraying a more negative feel to the piece, rather than positive
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I also tried blowing bubbles directly onto the paper, but as this technique is very wet, the resulting print pretty much became a whole mass of black and no texture could be seen.

15 – Aggravation

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Charcoal

Aggravation doesn’t really come out of nowhere, I think. It has to build up from small intensities. It begins when small things start to frustrate you, irritation starts buzzing in your head, then the annoyance persists to become more and more intense, leading to angry, shakey, intense lines that almost represent a sort of “lashing out”, of irritation to the point of anger.


16 – Distracted

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Thread, sewing machine

Happy little accidents. This piece was originally planned to be “Systematic” as I wanted to portray the sense of uniformity and systematicness that a sewing machine could create. However, as I was sewing, I realized that the bottom spool had run out of thread in the middle of it all, and as I was not paying attention, the main continued to run and the needle continued to oscillate without really sewing anything (just poking holes) (because there wasn’t enough thread loaded into the machine). The image itself does convey this concept very well, as we tend to be distracted in our work – while doing, we may stray into different strands of work, drift off, or even disappear altogether from what we were originally doing.


17 – Systematic

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Voids, holes

This reads “I am a product of the Singapore system” in braille, repeated many times. I wanted to create a tactile experience through this work, and so thought of poking holes into the paper – and, why not poke holes in a systematic way? I think the process too, of poking holes to create alphabets in a language you don’t understand – says something about mindlessly following the rules in a systematic way, without really knowing what it is you’re really doing.


18 – Zen

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Chinese ink, dry bunch of string

Zen has to do with inner peace amidst chaos – which, for me, was a very difficult to emotion to portray (I do not ever remember feeling zen). But what I imagine it to be, is to be strong and grounded, despite noise and disorder exists around you. As such, I wanted to create a contrast between marks – of strong, definite marks, contrasted with swift disorderly strokes and patterns (all while maintaining a clean background, to reduce the possibility of turning this into a more negative composition.


Exhausted. Finally done.

I think this project really challenged me to think beyond what I already know, and to break out of my comfort zone of trying to do too much too often – not every piece of work has to be defined by immense detail, effort and time. Sometimes, holding back and exerting control over your medium, over your own concepts and work could produce equally, if not more, powerful effects on the viewer. And that is what I strive for – to make art that makes one feel – and now, I know that intensity, immense =/= heart wrenching, soul touching art.

PEACE.

OUT.

TIME TO SLEEP.

Mark Making I

I was very excited to try out the Guan Dao in this session after making it the previous night. For such a cheap and easy to make instrument, it was very versatile and produced some very beautiful marks.

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Cotton string & Guan Daos brought in preparation for the session.
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Guan Dao and chinese inks.
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The curved blade was versatile and could produce both thin and thick lines. I enjoyed that the stiffness of the aluminium created rough edges in the perimeter of the line (as opposed to smooth edges created with a pen or a brush)

It was easy to produce lines with the GD as it was very similar to using a normal brush or a pen.

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The angle and pressure of the GD greatly affect the line produced. There is increased friction when the pen is held this way, resulting in skipping along the paper and spraying whenever the pen is stopped (inertia of the ink causes it to spray forward when the motion of the pen itself has discontinued).
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I had made a well with some newsprint to avoid making a mess. It is interesting to see the motion of each droplet – some skipping across the surface of the paper, and some colliding with full impact against the wall of the well.

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Above are experimentations using the pen. Really loving the wide variety of lines it produced – droplets skipping along the paper to create short and dynamic strokes, the GD scratching against the paper to create a dry-brush texture, and the skipping + spraying effect.
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Changing the hold of the pen – increasing the distance of the grip to the fulcrum reduces the control I have on the pen, creating more numerous & spaced out skips on the paper.
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Quick typographic work. Loving the spray of the ink in each stroke.

After prolonged use however, the aluminium could not handle the stress so began to fold and tear.

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Damaged after use.

I switched to using the string that I had brought along. Before beginning, I made 3 sets of strings in order to test out the effect of varying the thickness of each bundle of string.

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A singular string best creates solid lines when dragged along the surface of the paper. The string made occasional skips along the paper as the ink ran dry.
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Swinging the string left and right across the surface of the paper (in a pendulum motion) creates sharp, thin lines that begins with a heavy dot.

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Swinging the string in a circular motion creates swift, chaotic strokes. I quite like how the lines are tumultuous yet delicate at the same time.
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Marks created with a thick bundle of string – recalls the texture of a dry brush.

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I also experimented with materials brought by my classmates. I particularly enjoyed the effects created with David’s bubblewrap –

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I decided to cut the sheet of bubblewrap into a circular shape (rather than leaving it as a rectangle) to reinforce the circular shape of the small bubbles.

 

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I had used a mixture of block printing ink and chinese ink to create this print. The above prints were created in chronological order as I found that the first pass contained too much ink for my liking. I much preferred to see the irregular textures created in each bubble as the ink began to run dry after several passes. My favourite is number 3.
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I began to wonder what kind of prints I could make if I had more control over where the bubble wrap touched the paper, and so had the idea of wrapping it around my hand.
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This was created by anchoring the bottom of my palm onto the sheet of paper, and spinning my hand + the paper in a circular motion. As I had stopped mid-way in my motion, part of the print shows a still capture of the bubble wrap.
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This was a recreation of the above print. I find it striking that the speed of which the circle was created affects the textures produced. In this case, I was much hastier in my execution, and did not pause for a long time halfway through the circle, resulting in a much more impatient and swift motion.
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More.
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I began wrapping other things around my hand, such as string.
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Prints created with tied up hand. I did not like this much. Though, I did find it interesting how the string created negative space between it and the flesh.

I then began to wrap other things around other bodyparts. Namely, clingwrap around feet.

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New age revolutionary slimming technique.
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It was rather fun to create these with my feet.
  1. Broad horizontal stroke: created by dragging foot backwards, then stopping the motion and doing a twist. The change in motion brought an interesting touch to the discontinuation of the line (as opposed to simply stopping the linear motion of the foot).
  2. U-shaped curve: created by dragging the foot by the toe in a circular motion around the body.
  3. Scattered dots: created by balancing on one foot, and throwing the body off equilibrium to see where the foot will land next – “unbalanced”.

I very much enjoyed number 3. Will stretch the capacity of this more in the next session.

On the whole, I am rather satisfied with some of the things I had created in this session. However, a large part of me feels that I had not managed to explore the capabilities of the medium + myself. I had also tried some monoprinting, but did not produce any good pieces from that. I feel that more could have been done if I had more knowledge of print making processes and had more exposure to mark making pieces created by other artists.

Next week I will:

  1. Play more with the usage of the body (the feet in particular) in creating prints.
  2. Bring more mark making materials.
  3. Explore the use of negative space and reduction processes.

I have included more photographs below of other prints I had created during this session, but did not find fit to put into the main post.

Making of the Folded Pen: “Guan Dao”

I chanced upon this instrument a few months back when I was introduced to it by a colleague who was conducting a mark making + urban sketching class. Though I didn’t try it out for myself, I fell in love with the images produced by the pen – beautiful landscapes with emotive, raw line work.

After a quick Google search, I found a site with some crude instructions on how to create said pen (here). Below are my own documentations of reproducing the instrument.

  1. The great thing is that this pen can be produced very inexpensively – just save your canned drink the next time you make a run to the vending machine.

2. Mark out a “Y” shape as follows with any permanent marker.

3. Punch two holes into the corners of the “Y” using a hole puncher. This is for structural purposes. As aluminium tears easily, cutting out sharp corners may lead to easy tearing when the instrument is being used.

4. Cut along the marked lines.

5. As I have a nib holder on hand, I will fit the pen nib onto the holder. It is possible to tape your nib onto any other object that can act as a holder (pencil, dowel, ice-cream stick etc.)

6. As the piece of aluminium is rather flat, it is difficult to fit it onto the nib holder. Here, I fold the piece of aluminium around the bottom end of the holder to create a curvature in the piece of metal.

7. Once fitted onto the nib holder, it should look like this.

8. The next step is to fold the piece of aluminium in half and trim it to the shape of the Guan Dao. For aesthetic reasons, it is possible to fold it with the silver side facing out. However, I like that the printed packaging defines the handmade nature of the pen.

9. Here is the completed pen in its majesty:

Click here to see it in action!