Forrest Gump – Natasha Lim

Foundation 2D – It’s been a long road, but we’re finally nearing the end. Here are my final prints!

Final Reflections

(Technical?)

Someone mentioned that my prints all had a different style to them, and I somewhat agree? The Coraline print & the Little Prince print have the same “vintage illustration” feeling to them – the Kingsmen print seems somewhere in between, and much more detailed, with grey tones. In contrast, the high contrasting effect of the Narnia print is very different from the look & feel of the other two.

To be honest, I ran with the atmosphere and ‘feel’ of the artist references, but did not replicate their processes? I’m not sure if that means that I shortchanged myself in the process, but I did constantly keep the ideas, the mood & feel of the references in mind, and they certainly did play a part in shaping my final designs. Surrealism and vintage illustration/prints in particular were the driving force behind the inspiration of most of the works, especially in The Little Prince print and the Coraline print, where my concerns were mainly in making it look surreal, dreamlike and unnerving. Dan Hillier made a surprisingly deep impression on me, although from the looks of the works of my other classmates, it was not just me, haha. But well, I’m pretty happy with what I have. Between you and me, I think the Narnia print could have pushed more boundaries, though 🙁 oh well…

Besides that, I’ve learnt a lot from the silkscreen process. Drafting, coming up with ideas, making fast decisions and doing the printing was quite a fun process, albeit quite nerve-wracking. There is nothing like the feeling of wrecking your tote bag’s one side and knowing you only have one chance left, Natasha, you botch this up and it’ll set you back on your project timeline by WEEKS so it better be a damn good tote print— hahaha. I feel that this helped me have a bit of a taste of what I will be doing when the small enterprising idea we’re currently toying with (where a few of us are hoping to sell our designs as prints on hoodies & shirts) is properly set up in the near future.

(Emotional? Life management?)

Much better than Assignment 1, definitely. For one, I did much more reflections and more artist research this time round. I am still working on time management (my one true weakness) and spreading my workload out, though.

There seems to be a certain momentum involved in designing, like warming up in life drawing or stretching before a run? I think it’s an important realisation because often, when I’m tired, I realised that I use the excuse of “I’m not in the mood” to procrastinate on my designs even though it’s absolutely necessary for me to work on it so I don’t end up rushing it last minute. This is definitely not a good thing – Pastors always say that “the difference between a professional and an amateur is consistency,” and I think it’s so true.

Besides that, I am not as far removed from my perfectionist tendencies as I thought I was. I thought I was over this 🙁 but noooope I’m not 🙁 I only noticed it because of my procrastination – being afraid to start work because I felt like I wouldn’t be able to produce satisfactory work. It’s crippling and it’s bad, something that I totally need to get over/beat out of myself.

All in all, I’m actually quite satisfied with my work this time round. Before I kill myself with stress and anxiety though, it’s so important to always remind myself: there is always room for improvement, do your best but once it’s over and done with, live and let live. Someone once said, “It’s impossible to get worse at something you do every day.” Certainly, having chosen to start on this art journey, I can only get better.

Thank you for reading this, and hope you enjoyed reading about my processes as much as I enjoyed it!