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.
The 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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!
