Finally after a week of considerations, my nursery rhyme was set to be ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE. I don’t need to explain that this IS a rhyme since almost everyone who was born before the millennium knows it. A progress is a progress, so I shall place the full rhyme below.

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
This little finger on the right.

I felt nostalgic when I saw this rhyme during my research as it was one of the English nursery rhymes I first encountered in the language. So I figured, it has a perfect flow of story and able to be visualized with real objects, suitable for my choice of nursery rhyme.

The first challenge I faced was the concept. Then I remembered that DADA artists uses things we can immediately recognize to convey their intentions in a unconventional way. In other words, try to be indirect with iconic symbols, in this case, dingbats. So my orientation will describe the words indirectly even for “one”. Thus the following visual journal sketches were created.

20151012_223013 20151012_223018 20151012_223024 20151012_223032The arrangements were made by copying the selected dingbats on my computer screen. I figured this way of planning can shorten my processing time. Also, I always have a clearer mind with it comes to hand-drawn sketches. After a few modifications, I am happy with my sketches and thus moved on to the software.

 

 

 

 

 

One of the main character of the rhyme is the fish. It got caught and bit its catcher for its own escape. I can’t just find a fish dingbat to fill this badass place. To be honest, I just can’t find any fishes in the dingbats collection considering it is a basic creature. Thus I thought of being ‘resourceful’ in my own way and built a fish from the remaining dingbats. As you can see, this fish was made out of a bee, a pair of woman lips, leaves, flower petals, SBS double decked bus, and an umbrella.

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I had fun composing the fish. Suddenly, I thought, why not substitute it with the luxurious items I found among the dingbats? The fish in the rhyme can be interpreted as the material needs that we occasionally obtain. Sometimes these needs cost a certain price, therefore “bit” us in the finger. We can’t keep what wasn’t ours.

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Therefore, a fish composed from a bracelet, an unknown branded handbag, a sport car, a high heels, a Mac, an ancient coin, and another set of lips just to make it lifelike.

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A bear holding up a high five. Four well dressed lads. Three Trees. A balance scale which require two sides like the justice it represents. The one ring to rule them all.

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Ten fingers. A howling caNINE. Eight spiders. Seven saxophones (Saxophone is the closest thing I can get to shape like the number). 3 Satans’ mask, for the sake of satan’s phone number.

Why Hitler? Hitler was one of the victim of the needs — power. Also, his gesture looked like he was releasing a fish.

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“Why did you let it go?” Captain Picard says to the strutting Leo as the questioned tweedle dum/dee looks at him. Leo might think he’s an angel in heart for releasing the fish who secretly celebrates its victory. But Leo reveals the truth with diamonds.

Diamonds may not shape like fish teeth, but they certainly have the shape to form a vicious set.

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The little finger on my right, represented with a can of pills, signifies it’s the one in pain at the time.

Thanks for reading my whole process. I really had great fun doing the pictures. It’d be a good experience if it wasn’t constantly interrupted by my laptop’s faulty back-light. Hope you find my exploration interesting. See you soon in my next project!

ACT 1:

Howard and May are the main couple in this story. Howard is an ordinary student, and so is May. When they first met in high school, it was at a high school library. You can say they fell in love in first sight, or maybe just because Howard accidentally pushed over a book and it fell on May’s head. Whatever it was, their meeting was considered as the good old cliche word, fate. Howard was from another school, and he was just visiting the library before a competition, which May was the opponent. They started text each other, quietly sat beside each other in a gathering movie session, they exchanged gifts, until Howard popped the question when he was walking her home.

Of course it was not WYMM, but the one before that. They were then official, to their friends. They kept their relationship secrets from their families. You see, May came from a rather wealthier background, that didn’t mean her family concerns about class, but more of a you-must-concentrate-in-your-study kind of way. As for Howard, well it’s basically the same but his family hoped that stability is his first priority. Even though going underground, they cherish every moment they were together.

After they graduated from high school, Howard got accepted into the local university. May was definitely happy for him but she had to break the news — she got to study abroad, in another continent. It was going to be a long distance because May can only return to her home country once in a year. They worried about all the problems they might face as most of their friends never even last a month after interstate relationships. After the consulting with his best bros and her sista’s who eventually study abroad together, they decided to give it a try.

The bros and sista’s gave their own LD survival guide throughout the first stage of the year, and tons of hilarity occurred, getting themselves into various troubles and embarrassment. But thanks to their “power of love”, they survived the first year.

May returned to her hometown and her man during the vacation months. They spent a lovely montage of moments during her stay.

ACT 2:

On the second year, Howard met a girl who developed feelings to her. At first, Howard did not notice all the signals the girl gave, and just considered her as a female-bro. But the rumours spread out quicker than their instagram photos, adding insecurities in May. Her sista’s thought of a way for her to secure her position, but ended up miserably with the couple fighting over Skype.

The “cold war” started. May had then starting to get used to a life without Howard, and this statement had shocked her sista’s. Her sista’s warned the bros to inform Howard about the situation. The bros confronted Howard and proved that the new girl had a crush on him. They gave Howard a choice, letting go or embrace her back.

ACT 3:

Howard went to find the new girl, just to tell her that he was belong to someone else. The new girl understood and sent her blessing to the couple, leaving with tears of course. Howard then found a way to get with May, or rather get with May.

May was feeling alone on the streets of the emptied dorm, due to her stay over the break. She started to miss the days with companionship, she thought about Howard. Howard surprised her by the gate of the University. The couple reunited and the cold war ended.

2 years later, the couple introduced each other to their parents. They have became the model couple among their friends as well.

Myth retold: The cowherd and the weaver girl. Focused on how they can only reunited with each other once per year.

Genre: Rom-com

Logline: A couple trying to get over the obstacle/relationship problem that not many movie had talked about.

Due to the fact that it would be pretty much a blur after zoom for the photo. Here’s the video that goes through each and every lines in my final work! (Unframed.)

I’d say this project is a satisfied work for me. Yet there’s definitely some flaws in my final work, such as the aesthetic of the work. It’s a pity that I didn’t choose to try more methods of creating the patterns. Compared to my classmates works, my work lacks variety of materials and techniques. I believe some of the lines can be improved through different types of approach. This project has taught a lot to me and I hope that I can jump out of my own restrictions in my next project.

-END-

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The first thing I did was reviewing every lines I chose for the first inked draft. The review was performed with conversation between me and myself. Sounds depressing, but I found this quite useful in terms of concentrating. So I wrote out every verbal description of my lines. (The good thing about describable work is I can know what am I doing. haha.) Next, I commented on each of the description and determined whether they should leave or stay. Feels like the judges on any reality shows.

What’s next? Back to the thinking chair. In this case, the visual journal.

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Anxious: Missing stuff might cause anxiousness yet not serious and obvious enough. Embarrassed: Finalized.

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Nonsensical: First I thought of politicians but this concept is more of a picture than a line. The arrow with messy vectors signifies the messy side-plots in nonsense movie and yet again not in favor.

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Ambiguous: The dragon body was finalized with a room of improvement. The flames and clouds can be the hint of direction but it did not function like I expected.

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Fragile: It got its new inspiration from Exhausted’s spider web, with some little details added in the finalization.

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Systematic: The original line didn’t worked out as I hoped. So the line was revised and got a new symbolic answer.

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Turbulent: The new version is tricky to think because not much of fresh representation came into mind. These designs also lack subtleties.

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Distracted: What if someone got distracted when drawing crosses? Exaggerated and reluctant.

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Sensual: This is a finalized idea but it would only work if the branches are completed in full size.

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Sloven: The idea is tough as its definition can only be seen in a larger picture. Yet I don’t want it to be too simplified.

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Sloven: This was done by pencil sometimes later.

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Spontaneous: Finalized idea.

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Indecisive: I’m indecisive about this as well. The main inspiration comes from the theory of multi-verse and story plot possibilities.

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Aggressive: The emotion can be easily defined with lacking of depth. So the phrase was discontinued although it’s expressive for me.

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Turbulent: It was revised again at this point.

After listing out the ideas, I recalled one of the suggestion Ms.Joy gave. Since the depth of the lines are not equal, viewers might found it not interesting as it contains sudden drops of subtlety. Therefore, I can make a spectrum of subtleties to give out an ascending impressions of my work, hence the rearrangement in the last photo. This is also one of the reasons that I chose the A1 format. Moreover, the my concept doesn’t not consist of pairing and comparisons. I intended to show the whole picture in one so viewers can read the lines one by one.

[To be continued]

A visual journal to me is a compilation of my ideas, outcome of inspirations and observations. It can be a record of my creative progress for different assignments which can influence each and other. It can also be a room for conversation with myself, in terms of discovering what the heck I am thinking. There are a few challenges for my visual journal. One, whether or not I can keep up the habit. Two, I will possibly be limited by my own definition of image creating. Three, the uncertainty I have on the direction of my recording style. — Me in NTU Blackboard.

.It’s been a long journey from scratch till the presentation. In the beginning, I intend to let my hand do all the work, which is imagine myself into that certain emotions and let the pen creates the pattern instinctively.

 

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Anxious. Impatiently drawn with no consistency, including the straight lines.

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Bizarre. Trying to be as random as possible, but with regulations.

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Embarrassed. The line is drawn by a shy person. Constantly covers the line he drew.

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Fragile. Visualized with cracks, thin lines, glass panels, splitting string, muscle tissue, heartbeat, and loose sand.

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Exhausted. Visualizing the perception of exhaustion.

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Turbulent. My first thought was the flowing elements like liquids and air movement. But it could be projected as insecurity.

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Nonsensical. Do not make sense, do not need to. So I went without any rules.

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Psychotic. Can be portrayed by the results of splatting or the gooey feeling that needs to be released. OR, just use the words of sound made by a psychotic man who ran wild.

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Ambiguous. Supposedly drawn to avoid comprehension and conclusion of the shape. Like where do they face? what are they?

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Distracted. Intended to let the viewers to get distracted by something.

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Sensual. This one went on by instant flow of the pen.

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Sloven. Nothing is regulated by any sort. I attempted to produce something messy.

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Spontaneous. Inspired by fireworks, cell division, smoke and jumping dots.

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Aggressive. My pen was highly abused at this point. “I do give a shit” is the phrase I always shout in mind when I’m (and by the time WAS) angry.

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Indecisive. The regulations of the line keep on changing. They just can’t make up their minds.

All the premature lines are made in the moment, so their starting point are just as naive as I was. And so the end result of the first inked draft was presented with different intention.

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Our instructor, Ms. Joy found subtleties in some of the lines, especially those which ended up in the final work. She encouraged me to work on the new discovered strength of mine in the project. Therefore, a new orientation has appeared.

[To be continued]

Comparing to my fellow classmates, I might be slow in terms of conceptualizing. The sudden change of the final rhyme had me undone the thinking process I’ve gotten so far. Frankly I kind of lost in concept too.

I haven’t decide on the final nursery rhyme I am going to use yet, possibly due to my fading memory of the rhymes I grew up with. None of the nursery rhymes was ever been my favorite because every time I looked into any books of nursery rhymes, I was immediately attracted by the illustrations beside them. True story.

Most of the dingbats I created were based on the key words on each paragraph of “The road not taken”, and followed by an intense (not really) image searching in Google. Several internet memes came across my head and my screen which I found a bit of humor in them. Even some of them are the symbolic icons we all know like the David statue and the evolution of human graph. As I mentioned in the last post, what I comprehended about the referenced artist is that they used things that familiar to us to create something that are meaningful to them. So, why not try some of these icon to create the dingbats? We knew what they so we won’t be worrying about how we’re going to use them.

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I will never run out of materials thanks to the wide range of dingbats’ variety provided by my fellow classmates. Seriously, can you imagine how much space it would take up if I need to download them all?

Thanks to Mr. Lawrence’s crash course on Photoshop, I managed to create a picture by playing around my dingbats. But it will take me a longer time to adapt the style of modern abstraction like dadaism by walking out of the familiar picture compositing. Also, I need to be able to express my rhymes as well.

first attempt2

My attempt based on the elements appeared in “The road not taken”. Yet the dingbats lack interactions between one and other.

However, the concept and style of my project will be clarified within this recess (clear throat) week and eventually be able to represent the nursery rhymes the dingbats will soon be depicting.

Title: Rooftop

Summary: A girl invited a boy to find her at the rooftop.

Story structure: 3 arc structure

Genre: Intended to be Tragedy. Perhaps the acting in the beginning was assumed as comedy during screening. Though I am not sure how. (Serious.)

It’s started as a random short video idea as we don’t usually tell the whole process in a short video.

Now that I think of it, I may got influenced by the film I’ve watched during the time, Se7en. Se7en has a clue for revealing the real murderer in the middle of the film, where John Doe disguised himself as a reporter, and can be spotted portrayed by Kevin Spacey. Similarly, there’s a photo in my video which its duration intentionally shortened hinting the twist at the end. Please scroll to 1:10.

Hope that changes a tiny perception. Thank you guys for watching it through, although feeling cheated.

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Part 1: Me

I like visual arts especially moving images. The best activity to represent me is my love for watching movies. Watching movies is how I spend quality time with my dad as well, therefore it doesn’t matter how long it is, as long as it’s good, enjoyable, memorable, I will watch it, regardless the media I used. (Yup, so is downloaded files, which is quite a conflict to my future desired career.)

Speaking of career, I’ve always let myself run wild imagining stories. I determine myself to make a living out of my own creativity. Easier said than done, I am still working on writing my own style of creations.

Back in my high school years, I was always recognized as the cameraman. I’ll be glad to help anything that relies on camera and my passion for it is what brought me here to ADM. I like to stand behind the lens, documenting every moment for my families, friends, and myself. Sometimes, it even teaches me to cherish the moments with my senses, avoid missing any moments just because I need to set my camera.

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Part 2: My object

I chose my video mic by RODE as it’s one of the tools that get me where I am. I am able to expand my portfolio thanks to it providing my work quality sounds. It also enables me to gain trust and work opportunity from the people I’ve worked with by giving them the professional impression and professional outcome as well.  But fundamentally it’s a symbol of my starting point pursuing my dream career. It’s the proof of my dad approval for me to do what I love.

 

 

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Part 3: My world

When I was in my previous college, I worked for a research center as a repayment for my scholarship. That research center turns out to be a historical center for Nanyang University(NU), the predecessor of NTU. What was left by NU are the buildings and monuments shown in the photos. The Chinese Heritage Center is in fact the administrative center then while the tablet of NU is a replica of the real deal back in the days. I have working through all the historical photos back in college and now being able to see the real deal is quite an amazing experience. As for the last photo, I frame the representative building of both universities together to show how time can change anything, that’s how history works.