2D Project 3: Final Designs

Final Designs

My general concept for this project was to emulate a comic and game style for my images to link it to my narratives – which were alot about my daily life.

I wanted to go with an expression in comic art style – like how different artists for different comics could change the genre of the comic.

Some of the panels have an interactive element to it. (‘u’)✿

(The video is actually 20 seconds but YouTube is mean (;u;) There’s nothing but black for the rest of the last 3 minutes. )

(On a side note, it would be super cool to make GIFs for a school project next time ♡)

Here are my four sets of panels:

“Me, An Atheist” + “Cult of Corgi Butts” = “Suddenly Religious”

(Interactive Element: The white ring with planets extends outwards, to show that I’m free to think, and science is all around me.)

Materials Used
“Me, An Atheist” : Sakura micron pens, watercolor on watercolor paper, wire + acrylic, gold foil, nail polish
“Cult of Corgi Butts” : Digital
“Suddenly Religious” : Sakura micron pens, watercolor, gold foil

Behind the Image
I’d decided to use corgi butts as a topic. I’m a super huge fan of corgi butts, and converted because I like their short legs and fluffy butts!

I wanted to show my deep adoration for corgi butts like a religion – I fervently worship the fluffy butts, so I decided to convey these set of panels through inked pieces mounted onto a paper. I tried to convey a sense of 3D to make the portrayals of myself pop out – since I wanted to make it seem like a religion and about personal beliefs, which is very close to heart. The eyes are also cut out – transparent to reflect and mirror my heart and thoughts.

In the first panel and last panel, I specially wanted to show the noise of the world, and the contrast as it quietens down into singular devotion – hence the line of flowers.

For “Atheist Me”, I pierced a wire to imitate the rings of a solar system diagram, and cut small circular pieces. I then painted glittery nail polish on them so that they’ll be silvery and look like little moons and space-like.

Color Palette Selection and how it enhances message
I used analogous harmony for all three images- where the colors are right next to each other on the color wheel, and of the same-ish family (warm colors).

In ‘Me’, I portrayed myself in the colors of space (blues and blacks), as when I think of science, I think of space!

In ‘Setting’, I chose to portray The Cult of Corgi Butts in the color of a Pembroke Welsh Corgi (light brown). Also, I used light rays to show the ‘holiness’ of the cult, as well as enlightenment.

I used cool and warm colors to show opposing beliefs, and a change of cool to warm to show my change in belief and religion.

“Acrophobic Me” + “Room of Roaches” = “Up, Up and Away!”

(Interactive Element: Includes the door – Surprise! Roaches!)

(Interactive Element: The bird extends outwards, and flutters about when there’s wind or force. Inspired by stratosphere pictures.)

Materials Used
“Acrophobic Me” : Sakura micron pens, watercolor on watercolor paper
“Room of Roaches” : Digital
“Up, Up and Away!” : Wool felt, watercolor, black Sharpie, wire

Behind the Image
I’m scared of heights, but I’m more disgusted by roaches than I am scared of heights. (‘m’)

I’ve decided in “Acrophobic Me”, to portray myself as a chick who can’t fly even though I have nowhere else to go – and everyone around me is encouraging me to overcome my fear of heights. I used blue watercolor as clouds and mist, to convey morning and a sense of coldness – like getting cold feet.

I pierced the wire through the middle, much like the “Me, An Atheist” panel, and put masking tape on the bottom.

In “Room of Roaches”, I’ve decided to go digital and put a bunch of roaches on a floorplan of a house, to show infestation.

Finally in “Up, Up and Away!”, I felt that just a simple chick in space would not be enough to convey my urgency and fear. I decided to have a chick flying high above the clouds and beyond, with speedlines to show me zwooping out of Earth – unwilling to stay a moment longer.

I drew a chick and attached it on wire – it hovers/flutters when you move or blow at it (‘v’)

Color Palette Selection and how it enhances message
I used a triadic color harmony for the first frame, and monochrome canvas so that the colorful subjects would pop.

In ‘Setting’, I used monochromatic harmony for roaches – to show distance and alienation.

In ‘Result’, I combined the coldest color with black speedlines – to show the result of the roaches on my psyche – me leaving Earth for a better place.

“Fearless Me” + “KFC – A Horror Movie” = “Cowardly Me”

Materials Used
“Fearless Me” : Digital
“KFC – A Horror Movie” : Digital
“Cowardly Me” : Sakura micron pens, watercolor, watercolor

Behind the Image
I usually just go for horror movies even though I’m scared of gore/blood. I wanted to go for the look of me a brave challenger (“Fearless Me”), and challenging a horror movie (“KFC – A Horror Movie”), transforming me into “Cowardly Me”, timidly peeking out from a low corner of the canvas and not wanting to be at the center of attention any longer.

Color Palette Selection and how it enhances message
For this set, I used monochrome scheme, with an accent (red or yellow (warmth)).

For the second image, “KFC – A Horror Movie”, I used blacks and reds to imitate the look and feel of a horror movie poster, such as movies like “The Amityville Horror”. Supernatural/horror associated with monochromatic scale (blacks – whites), and red with blood.

I wanted to do a contrast between “Fearless Me” and “Cowardly Me”, so I tried to contrast as much as I could. “Fearless Me” is done digitally, in mostly blacks and reds, and “Cowardly Me” is done traditionally on watercolor paper, to convey a softer and fragile side, almost as if to show that I turned “pale as a sheet”.

“Me, Out of Shape” + “Bus Leaving from the Stop” = “Suddenly Ripped”

(Interactive Element: You can rip the bus away – as if it’s moving away!)

Materials Used
“Me, Out of Shape” : Sakura micron pens, copics, watercolor on watercolor paper
“Bus Leaving from the Stop” : Sakura micron pens, copics, watercolor on watercolor paper
“Suddenly Ripped” : Sakura micron pens, copics, watercolor on watercolor paper

Behind the Image
I didn’t want to just talk about my personality and likes, and I felt like I wanted to convey something physical that I did on a daily basis as well – since that might be more fun.

I decided to choose me running for my bus as a setting – I have an affinity for arriving at a bus stop just as my bus is about to leave, and I end up having to run for my buses all the time.

I chose to change my art style to something more malleable, natural and expressive in this set of panels and looked through LINE’s stickers to get some inspiration – to show that my pudge is stretchy and I’m “Out of Shape” since all I do is just sitting around and drawing.

When I run for my bus, I get an adrenaline rush and it makes me feel super ripped and macho, so I decided to draw that literally in the third panel “Suddenly Ripped”. The adrenaline gives me a fake sense of accomplishment even though all I’ve done was just to run for a minute or so.

Color Palette Selection and how it enhances message
In this series, I decided to only color myself (the chicken) in the panels where the chicken appears in “Me, Out of Shape” and “Suddenly Ripped”, so that it would be all about my emotions, feelings and ego of being the only one that mattered.

I chose a monochromatic scheme, with the reds and yellows as accents to define myself. In “Bus Leaving from the Stop”, I used green to

Difficulties and Takeaways (Learning Points)

In this project, I experimented with exploring mediums and colors as a form of expression rather than consistency (mix of digital and traditional art). Hence, I decided I wanted to dabble in mixed media for Project Ego!

I tried doing the images individually and break out of the “same style” mindset in which I would only use either digital or traditional medium. I decided to jumble them up and do them randomly just according to the text I wrote, so that I’ll be impartial to the medium I used for each image as I wanted to fit my traditional works together with digital and see if they worked well together.

However, this experimentation didn’t turn out so well as the digital images looked like they fitted with other digital pieces, but not so much with the traditional pieces. They still kind of fitted, but just not as well as it would have if I had decided to render them all traditionally. It was a great learning point and I’ll be super to keep that in mind next time. (‘u’)

I felt that it was also a great lesson that gelled the technique of conveying a feeling (Project Emo) and a narrative/message (Project Forrest Gump). It was difficult weighing which was more important in Project Ego. At times, I felt that aesthetics should take precedence because I saw a section in the brief that talked about explaining colors. However, I finally decided that I would prioritize the narrative as my colors should revolve around my message. Using the first set as an example (Atheist Me -> Cult of Corgi -> Suddenly Religious), I had decided to match my colors to my state of mind and my subject, and it came quite naturally – probably more so than if I had planned the color scheme for the entire project.

While I felt like I could have done much better and I am a little regretful that I was not able to proceed with my initial plan of inking everything (like I did for “Atheist Me”), I do feel like having a deadline forced me to explore different art and coloring styles and forced me to explore alternatives, rather than just the normal monochromatic inking style that I was used to. I got to use some digital panels and explored colors mostly as accents and symbolic representatives of myself as a character as well.

Also, traditional art is extremely time-consuming – it’ll do me more good to plan more time for them and work on the sketches more consistently too! Cutting and trimming took more time than I anticipated since I cut all of them myself.

(My dad took a photo of me cutting my stuff at home!)

I’m insanely grateful for the fun consultation sessions and the wonderful 2D projects. I really hope to explore more in upcoming 2D lessons in the next semester! It was a wonderful experience!

2D Project 2: Final Designs and Summary

I’ll be expanding more on the individual designs and the thought behind them for this post, to wrap up the second project.

Designs

I’ll see you on Mars, right after I eat the Milky Way – Alpha and Omega, 2010

[Selected for Silkscreen Printing]

Elements, Symbolism and Expression
(and the reason behind them)
I chose to represent a quite-literal meaning of “eat the Milky Way” by portraying a diagram of the solar system in a mouth. The fork and knife pictogram are picked to depict the idea of feasting and finery as well, and the lace to imply a tablecloth. I have hands to represent an embrace and contact – to close up on and devour the food, but also to represent potential touch and contact that would symbolism a potential meet-up.

I was hoping that together, these elements would give off the feel of dining of the more cultured and refined sort – which seemed more suitable for a quote that promises a meeting, wait and civility.

To add to that, I edited the canines in the mouth to sharp teeth – a nod to the movie the quote came from (Alpha and Omega) which was about wolves and predetermined social status. The teeth was to contrast the finery and crassness, but even the the civility to organize a meet-up revolves around the basic wild need for eating.

Design Principles

Balance: I used a symmetrical and central composition. There is also a balance of blacks and whites – almost in 50/50.

Contrast: There is a contrast of tones in black and white, and also of the directions of the elements in the opposing cutlery, as well as hands.
Emphasis: There is emphasis in the sun in the middle of the mouth. It is dead center, and it is the biggest spot of white that is left empty as well – so it draws attention.
Rhythm: The cutlery pictograms oppose each other, and the hands curl and form a space around the center – which leads the movement straight to the images in the middle and center.

Movement: The cutlery pictograms, as well as the hands, are all pointing in opposing directions to lead the eyes to the center. The lines radiating out from the sun in the middle also draws the eyes first to the sun, before the eyes travel along with the radiating lines to look at the smaller planets and stars, and the teeth.
Space: There is a sense of foreground (hands), middle ground (mouth) and background (cutlery and lace). It creates a balance through the ‘distance’ in the nature of the object. Pictograms are the most detached, and hands are warmest, with the solar system in the middle ground as something real and distant, but yet not artificial.

Unity: The elements are physically interacting with each other – like the hands curling around the mouth and the solar system inside the mouth. They are also linked in meaning – we use cutlery, and our hands and mouth to eat that which is gifted to us by nature.

People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead – The Crow, 1994

Elements, Symbolism and Expression
(and the reason behind them)
I chose to firstly represent people as ‘hands’ – to avoid individualizing people for this design and also to represent a graveyard and garden of souls, along with the picket fences. Using them together would make it look more earthly, like the mortal burdens. By planting them on the ground, I created a ‘border’ as well, between the human and the beyond that is represented by the floating circular door.

The circular door is to represent the ‘land of the dead’ and the idea of

I used an image of a crow made of different animals to show the crows as the guardians of life, as well as emotions and transparency – as humans are also animals, which may make us no better in death.

Design Principles

Balance: The design is symmetrical – it is almost identical in visual weight and image when split down in half and flipped.

Rhythm: The picket fences and hands are repeated across to ground them in the lower half of the picture – to mortality, as well as to separate them and show a boundary.

Value: The door is shown to have half-tones that radiate outwards; to emphasize it’s centrality and depict rays.

Movement: The picket fences and hands pointing upwards to create a visual line upwards to the crows and circular door, and also to imply the rising action of the eyes.

Contrast: There is a contrast in the darkness of the bottom half of the image, versus the light in the top half of the image – one is mostly blacks, and the other is mostly whites. I also used a strong contrast for the hands against the picket fences – the whites to show the idea of life, and the black picket fences to show the inanimate.

Space: There is a clear split in the middle of the divine and mortality in the middle.

Here’s another curse for you – may all your bacon burn – Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004

Elements, Symbolism and Expression

(and the reason behind them)

The first element in this is the pig and it represents the bacon! By choosing a live pig instead of bacon makes the image darker and meaner as roasting something alive implies pain and suffering. Along with that, there are cracked textures on the background to complement the pain and suffering.

The magic circle, yarn pins and roasting fire all come together to show the meaning of a vengeful, dark curse.

Design Principles

Texture: A cracked texture is placed on the background to show pain and suffering, and there is texture on the pig and fire as well to show action that is hot in nature – charring and crackling.

Movement: The fire directs the viewer’s view upwards, and the pins stuck in the pig directs the viewer’s gaze downwards onto the pig. The magic circle also closes in on the pig.
Space: The magic circle in the background and the pig in the foreground implies a ritual. If it were switched the other way round, it would seem as if casting is in action instead.

Baskin-Robbins always finds out – Ant-Man, 2015

Elements, Symbolism and Expression
(and the reason behind them)

The robin has a halo (of a celtic knot and rays) and judgmental eyes to convey a feeling of far superiority and of the robin monitoring your every move – to emulate a “Big Brother is watching you” vibe.

The celtic knot is to be the sun as it represents interconnection of all things, and the stump represents a land. The stump also has a design of the city to imply a civilization, and the little human pictograms and vectors are to show a ‘checkpoint’. This is to convey that everyone is being very tightly-watched by the robin, a dictatorial figure.

Finally, the cherry on the robin’s head is a nod to the brand – Baskin Robbins – as a stereotypical ice-cream or dessert comes with a cherry on top.

Design Principles

Unity: Every element in the picture are linked to each other. The robin interacts with the rays, the halo and the city-stump, and the people pictogram running through the stump, interacting with it. With the elements all connected to each other in some way, it creates a unified image where not a single element is left out.

Balance: The design’s visual weight is symmetrical if cut by half in the middle – which means that it adheres to the principle of balance.

Scale & Proportion, Dominance & Emphasis: In having the robin contrasting in scale and proportion to the other subjects (the running people in pictogram), it places more emphasis on the robin.

Similarity & Contrast: The space in which the robin sits in (the sun’s rays) and the space in which the pictogram people are running on (the whites and the vectors) are portrayed as two different spaces, which gives off a contrast between the bird and the people.

Also utilizing similarity, the people are duplicated and repeated, which directs attention away from the individual pictogram as it manipulates the viewer into seeing them as a line, rather than an individual pictogram.

Difficulties and Learning Points

(during the conceptual and production stage, and takeaways)

I had a couple of surface difficulties. While I worked on the designs halfway, I realized that I should not have grey tones in my image, so I had to rework all of them. I overcame this by abusing the Threshold filter and Levels function – which converts everything into black and white, and manipulates the percentages.

I didn’t encounter this difficulty myself but at one point while hosing off and picking at my screen, I did learn that half-tones and fine lines didn’t work in silk-screen printing – they don’t stay, and get washed off. I think some of our classmates had to redo their screens due to this. I was very worried at one point as my screen had some stars and lines that were quite fine.

Another point that I did panic at as well, was when I was pulling the paint down with the squeegee to test-print my design on newsprint. It turned out extremely dark (all the stars went out!) and it was hard to gauge the amount of ink I needed to use to print on fabric.

Miraculously enough – none of the major elements I had were compromised, and even the smallest detail, the lace, was printed out in surprising detail on my own tote bag!

I lost some of the netted texture,

but it’s better than a black or white chunk! (‘u’)

Thanks to this experience though, I did learn how fine you can actually go for silkscreen printing – what is printable, and what isn’t. What works well on fabric, what works well on newsprint, and more.

I also learnt from Shirley that pictures have warmth and coolness from textures! In the quote from Howl’s Moving Castle (the bacon one!), I learnt about the ‘temperature’ of an image. I used a fire pictogram, but replaced it with a fire that I made with a fire photograph overlaid with engraving texture – because the pictogram didn’t look hot enough. This usage of temperature didn’t cross my mind at all, so it was great learning!

Other than that, when I initially started on the first design, I was bent on using the pen tool, masking tool and half-tones. It was a nasty thing to do, since I ran into many issues with composition after putting in an element for the sake of putting one in, and not because they made sense. I tried to incorporate everything I learnt into an image, thinking that it would create variety. It didn’t work out that way for me when I shifted around the elements in my working file – the half-toned elements didn’t go well with the posterized elements, and wouldn’t go well with the images that had the threshold filter or an engraving patterning as well.

I learnt from this project that coming up with the concept, the subject and the design should take precedence over the aesthetics of the image when I’m starting on the first draft – it’s alright for the starting point to look ugly, and it’s alright to make mistakes! Normally, that would have been the natural thing to do, but after the Photoshop session during recess week, I was blindsided by the new things I had learnt – like how to retain the image size, how to use filters (such as half-tones). It caused me start designing with the filters and effects in mind, rather than using it as a touch-up tool.

From this, I learnt that I shouldn’t be cramping my style with tools. The things I had learnt should broaden the range of things that I can do, it shouldn’t be forcing me into a mold. Your tools should help you, not impede you!

And finally, I also learnt the importance of having friends. I don’t think any of us could have completed this project without a few extra pair of hands – and it’s great to have friends who can hold your screen down for you when you print! You help clean each other’s screens, get to keep each other company and get opinions and help from each other as well. Silkscreen printing helped me to remember the importance of teamwork and I had alot of fun during the project!

Also, Google is a very dangerous place. Choose your keywords carefully 🙁

(Also we’re doing this during Inktober; it’s a beautiful time for doing Project 2 >—>(c’:) )

Thank you Project 2! I’ve learnt so much from you!

2D Project 1: Final Strips (Fin) (´-ω-｀)

It’s been a really long few weeks but we’ve finally arrived at the last part of Project 1!

A shot of the final 18 pieces!

This post will talk about what went on behind each emotion too! (‘u’) But first – I want to thank this project for the wonderful experience! I feel like doing the 18 emotions have exposed me to alot of mediums and possibilities through personal research and talking with friends about their take on the emotions.

It was an extremely educational and enjoyable project, and while there were some hiccups and difficulties, I feel like I’ve gotten over them and came out stronger and with better clarity after this!

Some of the difficulties I faced and my takeaways:
Material Harmony: Pairing the wrong medium with the wrong canvas, for the wrong emotion: I tried gouache painting on thin balsa wood for Passion, but it didn’t spread well at all, and couldn’t recreate the original piece!

Material Choice: While working with ink, I found out that some of inks I own were not pure black at all. When they were mixed with white or diluted, they became purple or blues instead. I had to rework them or repaint when they became too much purple or blue. Lesson learnt – play and understand your materials more before directly applying them!

Selecting too many similar emotions: I realised halfway through, after the consultation, that I may have done in myself when I picked 9 emotions from Joy and 6 from Love – when I was supposed to pick 3 from 6 different categories. I quickly rectified that by reshuffling the emotions and finding emotions more suitable for the ones that were ill-fit, and it turned out for the better!

Variation: There was a limit on the school resources as well as the newsprint and A3 papers ran out. I had to eventually tap into my own materials and also buy some.

However, I’m still able to attain a reasonable level of variation in marks I made and maybe even more so since the school materials running out has pushed me to think more about using what is around me – such as reusing transparency films and gauze that I already had at home.

I felt like I’ve learnt to be more creative, and I’ll definitely explore more in my own time! I’ve learnt alot about materials during this project I never thought I’ll abuse (like gouache paints and transparency films), and to be more flexible with my emotions.

I didn’t want to work on many negative emotions when I first started as I felt like I wouldn’t relate to them as much as I would to the positive ones, and felt that I had restricted my play ground by alot just by thinking that.

As I worked and reworked more on the emotions, I started to feel that sometimes working on a variety of positive and negative emotions would turn out better – as the general look of all the 18 emotions together would have the positive emotions working together with the negative emotions to complement each other!

And not all emotions are completely negative – some are temporary, and some exists in duality to positive ones. I’ve learnt alot from my research and to keep my mind open as well!

And now I’ll elaborate more on the individual emotions and the thought that went behind them.

Passion

Definition: a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something
Method/Medium: Black and white gouache, painted with wool on newsprint, then edited on Adobe Photoshop
Behind the piece: Doesn’t it look like people dancing in pairs from the top, captured in motion? I used black and white gouache for this, painted on with wool in a fanning motion! I have attempted to recreate this on wood as well, but it didn’t turn out so well as the gouache was not able to spread smoothly on wood, hence I’ve decided to take my line to Photoshop instead.

Tenderness

Definition: very loving and gentle; showing affection and love for someone or something
Method/Medium: Copic multiliner on 250GSM white paper
Behind the piece: I wanted to convey how tenderness would cradle something gently, and hence the fluid lines! I believe that tenderness is a healing and positive emotion, hence the white strips against the crosshatched background that could stand for wounds or scars!

Adoration

Definition: strong feelings of love or admiration
Method/Medium: Payne’s Gray watercolor paint on 300GSM watercolor paper, with white gouache (flecks)
Behind the piece: I feel that adoration is a huge, sweet emotion contained in a tiny, simple and pure form, and wanted to convey that through the use of painting a texture that resembles the sky or galaxy contained in bubbles!

Zest

Definition: great enthusiasm and energy
Method/Medium: Black marker, copic multiliners and diluted black gouache on 250GSM paper
Behind the piece: I feel that zest is a very firey and a very lively emotion (and after my research, it started feeling a little fruity as well). I wanted to convey that through imitating the tendrils of a fire and plants, but emphasizing on the life and bounce of the emotion as well!

Zeal

Definition: a strong feeling of interest and enthusiasm that makes someone very eager or determined to do something
Method/Medium: Pink watercolor concentrate, chinese ink and white gouache on newsprint, then edited on photoshop
Behind the piece: Almost similar to zest, zeal is a firey emotion to me as well. But instead of feeling like tendrils, I feel that zeal is passionate and there is an urge to leap forward – hence I selected the part of the mark where the Chinese ink is being thrown forwards and looks like it’s leaping forward to burn at something!

Optimism

Definition: a feeling or belief that good things will happen in the future; a feeling or belief that what you hope for will happen
Method/Medium: Payne’s Gray watercolor paint on 300GSM watercolor paper, with white gouache
Behind the piece: I feel that optimism shines best when there is contrast, thus I placed white gouache bubbles that stood out from the background dyed grey and black. I didn’t dye the background completely black as I believed that optimism was something you only realize during grey and difficult times, and it doesn’t have to be absolute depression or despair!

Delight

Definition: a strong feeling of happiness : great pleasure or satisfaction
Method/Medium: Payne’s Gray watercolor paint on 300GSM watercolor paper, with white gouache (flecks)
Behind the piece: I feel that delight are like fireworks! It’s a slow emotion that blooms happily and comes up to your cheeks and throat when you see something that you really like – and it’s child-like! This piece was done with stroking watercolor horizontally upwards – to represent the direction of the emotion, as well as to give an earthly, festive feel. After the verticle strokes, I decided to use black and white gouache to create ‘fireworks’ that looks like flowers as well. I took some inspiration from the Japanese word “花火” (Hanabi), which also means fire flowers!

Elation

Definition: great happiness and exhilaration
Method/Medium: Payne’s Gray watercolor paint on 300GSM watercolor paper, with white gouache
Behind the piece: I wanted to convey elation as an emotion that almost completely overshadows the negative and dark emotions – hence the struggle of the blacks and greys, against the percentage of white in the background and within the space of the bubbles.

Surprise

Definition: to strike or occur to with a sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment, as through unexpectedness
Method/Medium: Black and white gouache mixed with some glow-in-the-dark powder, painted and dabbed on 250GSM white paper
Behind the piece: I feel that surprise is a sudden interruption to the norm, but a pleasant one; like a warm and light bursting in your chest when you feel it!
This piece was based off on my previous draft of ‘Hope’ – where I realised halfway through while reworking on this, that it seemed more like a little spark, rather than light at the end of a tunnel. I also didn’t feel that Surprise had the aggressive properties of a spark, so I made the center powdery by dabbing white gouache instead, and mixing out some greys as well to try to convey a warm, blooming sensation!

Loathing

Definition: a feeling of intense dislike or disgust; hatred
Method/Medium: Black and white gouache and watercolor paints, pressed between transparency film
Behind the piece: I pressed gouache paint between two pieces of transparency for this one, and was surprised by how it turned out! Loathing to me is a swirling emotion that is unconscious in nature and yet could co-exist and achieve duality with something positive, sometimes maybe even melting into it – it’s when you feel an extreme hate for someone, but sometimes even believing that you are right – hence the progression of light thoughts into dark thoughts, but with a few bright emotions swirling in the darkness.

Hostility

Definition: deep-seated usually mutual ill will
Method/Medium: Black printing ink spread on a linoleum sheet with yarn patterns and tissue flecks, then pressed onto A3 white paper
Behind the piece: Hostility resembles the jaws of a predator, or the fierce nature, so I melded both into one image! Do you spot the owl? (‘u’)

Resentment

Definition: a feeling of anger or displeasure about someone or something unfair
Method/Medium: Black printing ink; remnants when an A3 white paper stuck onto ‘Hostility”s piece was torn from it and repurposed digitally.
Behind the piece: This piece was born when I tore a piece of white A3 paper that was stuck to Hostility. There were root-like patterns and I immediately thought of Resentment. I feel that Resentment is an unconscious emotion that creeps up to you and exists together with a light mind. It’s an unconscious dislike for something or someone, and it’s almost stifling, suffocating and gives you the goosebumps!

Heartache

Definition: emotional anguish or grief, typically caused by the loss or absence of someone loved
Method/Medium: White gouache and medical gauze on black texture paper
Behind the piece: I feel that Heartache is an extremely depressing emotion that is desperately looking to heal itself and restore itself to its original form, chasing after the shadow of what it was!

Abandonment

Definition: a feeling of utter loneliness and neglect
Method/Medium: Black and white gouache pressed between transparency film, with wool glued to the top
Behind the piece: Abandonment is the feeling of loneliness and stagnation, rendering one blind to all the other things happening out there, thus I used wool to hide, putting a barrier between the honest emotions and the viewer.

Gloom

Definition: a state of depression or despondency
Method/Medium: Chinese ink on newsprint, digitalized
Behind the piece: Gloom is drippy; the feeling when you just want to do nothing else but sink into the floor. I don’t feel that it’s quite like sadness, but like a feeling of unhappiness and unsatisfaction instead.

Trapped

Definition: unable to move or escape as a result of obstruction
Method/Medium: Copic multiliner on 250GSM paper
Behind the piece: I wanted to portray the feeling of being caged and trapped in the unknown, and to create a sense of confusion, nonsense and unrest.

Fright

Definition: a sudden intense feeling of fear
Method/Medium: Chinese ink on newsprint, digitalized
Behind the piece: I feel like fright is an extremely sudden emotion – going away almost as soon as it is experienced, but even when it goes away, it leaves a deep impression and traces of what just transpired

Perturbation

Definition: mental uneasiness
Method/Medium: Sea salt on Payne’s Gray watercolor paint and grey string on 300GSM watercolor paper, with white gouache
Behind the piece: I feel that Perturbation is the feeling of uneasiness, unrest and the feeling of being disturbed, and almost like sickness. I used sea salt to spread the paint – to try and make it look like a sickly emotion within the middle of each body, despite the outwardly alright disposition of the emotion.