Journey Video(draft & thoughts)

Hit play for the draft of my video. : )

Or click here!

 

This is my final idea.

Sometimes I just feel depressed and it gets worse if I continue to stay indoor especially when no one else is around to talk to.

Feeling tired from stuffs in life, I would tend to stare at random things and it is kind of blank in my brain. Those sounds from all ordinary objects suddenly seem clearer and louder, yet repeated in a rather dull way. Everything seems so quiet, but my emotion could be changing rapidly and sometimes I become emotional on small unimportant things.

This is when I know that I need to talk a walk and relax, preferably somewhere different. A change of place, change of mood, I suppose. Therefore, this is a journey of escape from depression. Is it a dramatic one or a peaceful one? Will find out more in the final video.

 

About the video

Media: I chose to use still images instead of videos for several reasons. But mostly because I feel more comfortable with arranging images than videos. Videos seem more dynamic and vivid but I also love the pause of moment created by the still images. It leaves more for the viewers’ imagination.

Progress: So far I manage to arrange the images in the order I prefer and scale them into the appropriate sizes. Also I add some sounds into the beginning of the video as well as trying out some simple effects. Still, there are adjustment of the images, more sounds and probably  captions(or voice-over?) to be added.

 

Thank you for watching! And I would appreciate it if you leave you comments!

e.g. Is it moving at too slow or too past pace?

 

The End!

 

 

 

 

Journey-initial idea 2

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  When I looked out of my window, I was so amazed by the orange light and reflection on the window frame. When the focus was on the frame, the light turned blur and the drain ditch somehow reminded me of a train track. So I took my camera and walked outside to explore. The lights turn out to be fascinating when they were out of focus. With contrast of the darkness, the orange color seemed more warm and cozy. I also loved the light in between the tree leaves.


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  Besides taking photos, I did some Photoshop editing to explore on colors and contrast as well. Different exposures bring certain different emotions toward the image. When it was desaturated, we tend to pay more attention on the contrast of the brightness than the colors of the objects themselves.

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Another idea of taking photos/videos of an small object/figure in the nature as it is taking an adventure also hit me the other day. I kind of like the idea but didn’t think of an ideal thing to represent the hero.

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Journey-initial idea 1

The initial idea of taking photos of the cats came from a question of where did the cats go and what did they do at nights. As a volunteer cat feeder, I had the chance of getting close to the cats. Even though the cats stay in a certain area as their territory, there are actually many interaction among them, which often surprises us.

However, it was not easy to know when and where exactly the cats were going on ‘adventure’. Even if I saw something interesting and unusual going on, I failed to capture the moments as they really ran very fast…… More often I got the photos of their cozy life downstairs campus halls.

All these cats are so different, as I approach them and get to know them more. This turned out to be more like a journey of me getting closer to these cats instead of the journey of the cats themselves.

 

This is Milky. She loves to lie around on the ground or beneath the cars. She gets distracted so easy when we are feeding her and we always end up ‘begging’ her to eat. Otherwise, she will look at you with her innocent eyes, asking for more food when you just distribute all the cans.

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This is Charlie. She has FLV and sadly no teeth to chew the food. Only smashed can food can be given to her and she always runs towards us when we call her. She is just like a little kid when she kneads on my legs as I sit down near her.DSC07344DSC07345 DSC07346 DSC07347

 

 

Meet Zero the younger black cat! He loves to rub his head against our legs and when we feed him. In this photo, I found it quite funny that he put his tail in the cracks on the ground.

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This is Youth. He is picky about his can food. As we were told, he doesn’t like Satin, but sometimes he seems like he enjoys it. And he eats really a lot! He always appear in dark places and we only see him at night so it was actually not easy to take photo of him.DSC07363

 

This is another black cat called Champion. She was in a fight or incident once and therefore there were wounds on her ears. She is always very alerted and stops eating and even runs away when she hears sounds of cars or big group of people. I also discovered that she moves around in a bigger area than others. One time I saw her chasing after Youth and I took this photo before she ran fast.DSC07365

 The End

Project 2- image editing

Below are the edited images for the rhyme ‘Old woman lives in a shoe’. The original images were from different sources: woodcuts, old engravings and even real life photographs. I edited them to create the vintage feel required for this project.

Also, from what we learnt last week, different ways of editing result in variation in styles. As shown below, the same images give no similar impression after editing.

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2D Lines final submission

‘A Line Is A Dot That Went For A Walk’

Final Submission for the Line project was in A1 Landscape format. I arranged the lines so that too similar ones won’t fight for attention and there were some orders such as going from darker to lighter colors. Through the process of exploring and making all these lines, I learned a lot more about ways of creating images, which would not been achieved easily by just pen. And I actually enjoyed a lot when I was doing the lines as it doesn’t really require us to be always careful and accurate. On the contrary, sometimes coincidence created beautiful unexpected results.

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Aggressive

There are many speedy lines flying from the left to the right as well as many shapes that look like bullet holes on the window.

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Embarrassed 

The patterns are hiding behind the bright white lines of exposure. They are dark and barely showing the details almost like they are embarrassed.

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Spontaneous

This line is a happy incident from the combination of glue and ink, which creates the free flow of the water-like shapes.

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Anxious

Repeating and messy lines are what I tend to draw a lot when feeling anxious. They also happen to have many round or ellipse shapes.

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Psychotic

This was done with monoprints and as mentioned in the previous post, I liked the way the thin lines look glowing the the contrasting background. Somehow it reminds me of some scenes in the psychotic horror movies

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Awkward

The darker marks on the lighter ones seem awkward. They are in different directions and all over the line while the background is more organized in comparison.

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Exhausted

The ink used in the background is glittering. The black lines and white lines are trying to create a space as the brighter ones are nearer to the viewer. I think it represents exhausted because it looks like abstract meteorite fall. They are so exhausted that they just let gravity takes control of the fall.

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Lyrical

This line was done using only pen and protractor. It is wavy with the ellipses yet not turbulent because of the presence of the straight lines to balance.

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Sloven

There are several layers to this line. The bottom one being black and the top one being white allows me to scrape lines on it. The line has an untidy and messy feel.

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Nonsensical

Done using monoprint with tissue and ink. The shapes are very random and irregular. There is a section on the left top part of the line that contains interesting patterns.

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Systematic

There are horizontal and vertical lines in the background with some stronger lines. Then I erased some edges on the line with a certain rule I made up and also for applying darker colors for some grids.

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Turbulent

For turbulent, I meant to create the abstract look of the strong waves in the ocean. They were drawn with dark ink and white paint.

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Bizarre

There is a river with weird eye-like shapes in it and it is surrounded with patterns. I made those patterns with as many different inks and paints to produce more details. Then I scribbled on them something like those ancient cave drawings.

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Indecisive

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Ambiguous

The line was created with the technique of fumage. It took quite long and several trial and error to have the paper covered with smoke marks. Then I wiped it lightly with tissue to create the unclear and ambiguous atmosphere.

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Distracted

The straight lines going from the top to the bottom. It is like some shapes are behind there distracting the lines.

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Fragile

The inspiration for the fragile line came from the nature, the spiderweb. Similarly, they were first drawn with hard solid lines and then I erased them to create the space in between each shapes.

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The sharp patterns were produced with a dry and spoiled brush. The tip was dipped in the ink and went over the line with passion and movement.

The End

Hope you enjoy them! Thank you

2D line inspiration & process

 

I found two interesting books on lines and compositions. They were written by Tony Robbin and John Cage respectively. As we can tell from the book covers, they were very different in the atmosphere.IMG_2172

 

reference is taken from : Book Title “Tony Robbin: A Retrospective: Paintings and Drawings 1970-2010″ by Linda Dalrymple Henderson (Author), Robert Kushner (Author), Joyce Kozloff (Author), Tony Robbin ( Author) Publisher: Hudson Hills; First Edition edition (July 16, 2011)ISBN-10: 1555953670

About Tony Robbin: Tony Robbin is a pioneer in the computer visualization of four-dimensional geometry. Since 1981, his realtime rotation programs of four-dimensional figures have been useful for obtaining an intuitive feel for four-dimensional and quasicrystal space.

John Cage: Zen Ox-Herding Pictures Hardcover – October 7, 2009
by Stephen Addiss (Author), Ray Kass (Author) Publisher: George Braziller Inc. (October 7, 2009) ISBN-10: 080761601X
” This book brings together fifty never-before-seen watercolor images from the brush of renowned artist and composer John Cage. These pieces were initially considered a by-product of a 1988 Mountain Lake Workshop, test sheets used to experiment with the flow of color from Cage’s brush as he prepared for larger Zen pieces, but authors Stephen Addiss and Ray Kass unite them here to explore the influence of Zen in Cage’s life. They juxtapose the compositions with the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures, a series of images used to communicate the essence of Zen for nearly one thousand years. They refer fragments of Cage’s poetry and his many statements about Zen practice, providing a fascinating lens through which the reader can view the Mountain Lake Workshop paintings. Cage’s images seem to become mysterious echoes of the centuries-old Ten Ox-Herding Pictures themselves, images about searching for the path to enlightenment.” (http://www.amazon.com/John-Cage-Zen-Ox-Herding-Pictures/dp/080761601X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1442143981&sr=1-1&keywords=John+Cage++Zen+ox+herding+picture)

John Cage was famous for his music and he was avanguard composer ”
From Publishers Weekly
“Known best for his music and performances, John Cage also painted and wrote extensively. Zen Buddhism influenced his approach to his work—nature as a path to self, collaboration in performance and happenstance in composition. The art and poetry in this book represent a collaboration both accidental and deliberate between Cage, Addiss and Kass. Cage was working on another series of paintings when he marked a series of brown paper towels. Artist Kass and artist/composer Addiss ordered the towels into a sequence, then Addiss culled Cage’s writings to create a cutup or recomposition of found words and phrases into a new work. Cage recognized the importance of the remix long before it became fashionable. The accidental circumstances of this work’s assemblage doesn’t diminish its charm or delicacy. The introductory material provides essential context, but the best approach may be to read and view the work, read the essays, then review the piece again. Addiss and Kass prove the continuing relevance of the tradition of ox-herding as a format for teaching and connecting the heart to the mind. 50 color and 12 b&w illus. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

First of all, there were some of the images I really liked in the first book so I scanned them in. The simple geometrical shapes created a 3 dimensional space. They might look plain at first glance, but then I started to look into all the details and realized just there were so many interesting arrangements of elements creating several layers.  MDS00004 MDS00003 MDS00001 MDS00002  MDS00005

John Cage: the choice of the yellowish paper and lines were very different from Tony Robbin  The atmosphere of Zen as he mentioned. MDS00007 MDS00008MDS00006As a matter of fact, I didn’t get to spend more time on exploring similar effects from these books. If I had more time, I would definitely try out more lines with 3 dimensional space and on more types of paper.

 

 

Process

fumage: I fixed the candle to make it standing and then I could move my paper over the fire to get the smokes on the strips. When I first tried out this technique on my hard copy journal, several pages were burnt though. Therefore, I cut out the lines instead.

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In the image below were experiments I did with fumage

When you move the paper fast enough, you will get the intermittent effects

Then I erased the color with different things such as pen, tissue paper and my finger…

Drew on it using charcoal as well

the one below I was trying to create the clouds and raining effects to it

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I also looked into straight lines and how they could be possibly arranged.

Below was a photo of the carpet at SAC (originally colorful)  I think it looked great and kind of remind me of the scan bar codes.

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This one was one of the experiment I did. I was wearing a stripped dress at that moment so I took this photo.FullSizeRender

And then I cut the lines into equal width and aligned them in all kinds of way to explore.

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Besides, I also found these amazing art works online by Filomena de Andrade Booth. As a matter of fact, one of my line was inspired by her works. There were not  much information on her but she being an American contemporary artist.

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images referenced from: http://filomenabooth.com/MDS00009

 

 

 

After I completed all my lines, I cut out the small black papers with the emotions written as I didn’t want to write directly on the lines.

 

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2D lines artist research-Andy Warhol

LINE PROJECT

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Image referenced from: revolverwarholgallery About Andy Warhol  https://revolverwarholgallery.com/andy-warhol/

 

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)

He was one of the leading artists of 1960s Pop Art Movement. He explored in a wide variety of art forms, including performance art, filmmaking, video installations and writing. Andy Warhol was generally known as a successful commercial illustrator.

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Image referenced from: The Warhol Campbell’s Soup: Ode to Food

http://www.warhol.org/education/resourceslessons/Campbell%E2%80%99s-Soup–Ode-to-Food/

Image referenced from: Pinterest  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/419679258996976244/

 

In 1962, he exhibited the now-iconic paintings of Campbell’s soup cans and he also used vivid and garish colors to create celebrity portraits. “My idea of a good picture is one that’s in focus and of a famous person.”, he said.

 

 

Process

For most of the twentieth century, screen-printing techniques were kept confidential. It wasn’t until the 1960s, with the help of Andy Warhol, that it became a more widely recognized art form.

He produced silkscreen paintings based on photograph and used its efficiency to his advantage to create multiple copies of the same composition in different colors.

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Eight Elvises was sold for a reported $100 million

Image referenced from: Total Histroy Eight Elvises  http://totallyhistory.com/eight-elvises/

 

The concept of speed was depicted simply by decrement of space in between each print.

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Image referenced from: microstencil What is stencil printing? http://spc.microstencil.com/tutorials/what-is-stencil-printing

The screenprinting process is a form of stenciling, in which a stencil is placed on top of a sheet and then ink is pushed through the stencil to create an image.

 

 

 

Shadows

“Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”

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Image referenced from: AZZURRO 23 MAY ANDY WARHOL, CHASING SHADOWS IN PARI  http://azzurrodue.com/andy-warhol-chasing-shadows-in-paris/

 

I saw the quote above and wonder maybe this was what Andy Warhol expressed in his work” Shadows”. There were in total 102 parts exhibited as one work displayed like a long film strip. There were produced using his famous process of silkscreened and hand painting.

They were based on photographs of real shadows taken in The Factory (his studio in NYC)

There were alternate between positive and negative imprints with range of hue. Seriality and repetition created visual music, artwork full of mood and mystery. Following his previous experiments on abstraction e.g. Oxidation

Inspiration from the Shadows for me was that he made use of the photograph taken of real life. He chose the specific part of the shadows and combined different colors to express his emotion and feeling. With black and white contrast in the variation of hue background, a strong yet mysterious atmosphere emerged.  All the paintings were displayed in a strip, creating a flow with vitality, symbolizing ups and downs in life.

 

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Oxidation also referred as Warhol’s Piss Paintings

Generally attributed to 1977-78

Canvas pre-coated with copper painted by Warhol. Uric acid would oxidize the metal in the copper ground, causing it to discolor, allowing patterns to be created according to the ‘movement’ of the ‘painter’. He experimented with both pattern and coloration by using a variety of metallic background paints and varying fluid and food intake.

May be inspired by Pasolini’s film, Teorama (1968) where a man urinated on a canvas in search for ultimate methodology and activities in sex clubs and gay bathhouses.

Image referenced from: christies the art people Andy Warhol 

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/paintings/andy-warhol-oxidation-painting-5074062-details.aspx

Image referenced from: Study Blue https://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/final-2/deck/6214367

From my point of view, this was experiment Andy Warhol carried out on the chemical reactions. Since the movement of the painters wasn’t fixed and the exposure to the air made a great difference on the outcome of the art work, they were in a sense unpredictable and spontaneous and adventurous as one may say.

 

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Image referenced from: Pinterst https://www.pinterest.com/hayetdeb/rorschach/

Image referenced from: The Warhol Rorschach, 1984 http://www.warhol.org/collection/art/work/1998-1-297/

 

Rorschach

These paintings were achieved by painting on one side, and folding vertically to imprint it on the other half. Andy Warhol used this pour-and-fold technique to obtain the symmetrical images that appeared somewhat resembled body parts.

This technique was modeled on the famous “inkblot” test invented by the Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach. The actual test provides ten standardized blots for a patient to decipher to interpret about the subject’s personality, intelligence and sexual proclivities.

The research brought me back to the definition of automatic drawing and realized the similarity of them. We draw or pour ink spontaneously and let our heart lead the way. The outcome in some level reveals something deeper about us.

 

 

 Links to other posts:

2D LINES EXPERIENMENT (including stencil printing inspired by Andy Warhol)

MORE LINES!

More Lines!

First of all, I scanned in the first few monoprints I did. I wasn’t very sure what to do with monoprint at first as I was quite lost. Therefore I created prints with certain objects such as a scenery as below. They were very much alike without obvious textures.MDS00012 MDS00013 MDS00010 The third image here turned out quite interesting  with its feeling of movement and speed,starting from which I got to understand what monoprints may be used to create. However, the many following prints I did turned out very dark as too much ink were applied.

Besides the not so successful mono prints, I  tried out other techniques on my own.

More stuffs I did on my hard copy journal as well as paper strips

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It was really fun trying many ways of creating images rather than drawing all of them with only pen. I basically took what I saw in front of me and combined them in.

Then I started to look at the emotions given in the hand-out. Looking at the word ‘Bizarre’, the first thing I thought of was those ancient weird looking cave drawings. The shape of a emotionless eye, dark and rough stroke combined with  random scribbles were what made the stripe below.

I tried out fumage a few times before I applied this technique into the line. My finger accidentally touched on the line and the colors were erased so I decided to just went with it and drew something using charcoal. It turned out quite nice especially the colors went from light to dark from the left to right along with the flow of the ‘river’ .

For ‘Lyrical’, I was trying out with my protractor and the idea just hit me. I had a certain ‘rule’ when I was drawing it. For example, the straight lines were at different angles if they were adjacent.

I also started to use Chinese Calligraphy  ink and brush. With different amounts of water, the effected turned out very differently.

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As I was feeling more confident, I continued to try more things out: stencil cuts, charcoal, water and tape, contrast between wet and dry paint etc. I also tried splash the ink freely on the paper as well as let it dripped down on its own and wiped it with tissue.

 

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Top left was the pattern I cut out and tried printing with different inks.

Drew solid line with ink

Drew with ink and water using brush on double-sided tape and then covered it with single-side tape

Drew dark parts with tapes on the line, remove the tape and filled in blank with dry brush and then added in thin white lines

Charcoal on glue

Gravity, water& ink  wiped textures by tissue paper

etc.

 

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I liked the combination of many different materials as well as the contrast between dark black, light black and white.

A few lines created with repeated line also seem interesting to me. In fact, I did them when I was listening at a cca meeting. It was really relaxing and required no deep thinking but turning out good.

 

 

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The top one was the result of the combination of both free water flow and decalcomania

the left one below had a texture that kind of reminded me of the moon surface

These were the lines I was most satisfied with at that moment so I decided I should start on making lines on actual stripes with the correct scale.

 

 

Most of the lines below were used in the final lines so I will explain more in another post!

MDS00014 MDS00011 MDS00009 MDS00023 MDS00021 MDS00020As you can see, they were just lots of trial and error.

Hope you enjoy them.

The End

 

Links:

2D LINES ARTIST RESEARCH-ANDY WARHOL

2D LINES EXPERIENMENT

 

2D Lines Experienment

 

These are some of the mono prints I did, trying to create some effects in my mind.

Firstly I covered the whole board with ink and placed a paper on top of it lightly. And then I slowly used a pen to draw the shape I came up with previously. In order to maintain the same shape, I cut out a piece of plastic sheet with the patterns cut through so that I can trace them accordingly. At the same time, I also to see how it will turn out from different arrangements: same spacing, decreasing spacing to look like speeding up , rotation

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Below is what it turned out to be after the first print. The paper was placed on the ink for too long or maybe there was too much ink. The patterns printed was not obvious.

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Second print

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This was just drawing the shapes without any reference. It was done on another previously printed drawing.

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Following was the second print from the above mono print. The lines looked a bit glowing with the contrast of the background. I also created some black circles by pressing a tape roll when printing.

 

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This was done using glue+ink MDS00026

Tissue + brush (first print)MDS00027

Second print showed more texture and details

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Links:

 

MORE LINES!

2D LINES ARTIST RESEARCH-ANDY WARHOL

Self-Portrait (Final Submission)

Self Portrait With Chinese Tea Set

-Tea and Me-

I am from  a small city called Teochew known for Gongfu Tea, a kind of Chinese tea ceremony. Most of the people there drink tea everyday from the morning to even the evening. Chatting and drinking tea is an important part of our daily life. When I was a kid, I used to dislike tea for its bitterness and the way we drink. The tea cups are pretty hot with the boiled water poured in and it took me quite long to learn to make Gongfu tea properly.As I grew older, I began to drink more tea because it kept me awake.

    It was only when I came to Singapore as an International student, which was a few years ago that I began to truly appreciate the value of tea. The familiar taste and smell of tea just brings me back to my hometown. It reminds me of where I came from and my family who are always there supporting me. Drinking tea is one of the most relaxing things for me now and it calms me down especially when I feel lost  or frustrated in a foreign land.

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  Drinking tea on the floor of a car park seems “insane”, yet I was doing it in a really relaxed and calm way. On one hand, I wanted to show that I enjoyed drinking tea a lot. Car park is normally place people pay not much attention and come and leave fast, but I chose to sit down on it and drink tea casually. On the other hand, without looking at the camera but looking at the distance instead, I was thinking about something, my hometown as a matter of fact. Though it is hard to tell without the description, this photo still shows that I was indulged in my own thoughts through drinking tea.

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  This is the simplest version for a Gongfu Tea set I brought from my hometown. It is a travel kit consists of only three tea cups and a teapot. I edited the tone of the photo so that it looked kind of nostalgic but warm. It may appear to be just a usual photo of the tea set. Actually, there are more meanings to it I tried to convey. It is a tradition to have 3 tea cups because we always drink Gongfu Tea with other people. A warm greeting of “Want some tea?” and passing a teacup to someone was just a nice gesture to show your welcomes. I missed the time of drinking with family and friends. Even when I drink tea on my own, I like to put all 3 tea cups there. However, in this photo, they were empty. It was exactly how I feel sometimes.

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   I am looking at the camera this time, with a tea cup in my hand. Drinking tea is part of who I am, it is my identity. My mouth was hidden behind the tea cup because I don’t want the audience to focus on my facial expression. Am I smiling or not? The focus here is the tea cup. And my eyes are trying to tell you how I feel about them.

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The rest of photos are similar that I was drinking tea at all kinds of “uncommon” places. They are slightly different on my expressions. I was closing in my eyes in the lift and smiling when sitting on the lawn in one of the photo. In another two photos, it was more hidden, leaving for audience’s imagination. The tea set was the main focus in both photos.

-The layout of the photos on the wall-

The End