Research on colours
Fauvism
One art movement that focused on colour was Fauvism. It separated colour from its descriptive, representational purpose and allows colour to be used independently to create a mood or establish a structure within the work without being true to the natural world.
Process
I decided to base each setting according to different countries I have visited, as I feel that in that the culture and atmosphere of each country brings out different parts of me.
Mediums: Acrylic, watercolour, oil pastels, colour pencils
I used traditional mediums as I prefer the raw colours and brush strokes. However I transferred the drawings to photoshop to tweak certain errors.
Ego 1:
My first setting is in Singapore.
Materials: For the polar bears, I used oil pastel to make a hairy effect. I used digital colours for the background to keep it neat in contrast to the raw strokes of the oil pastels. I drew HDB flats as they are a symbol of Singapore.
Ego 2:
Mount Fuji is one of the most prominent symbols of Japan. Its symmetry and shape never ceases to amaze me and brings a sense of serenity when I look at it.
Materials: I used acrylic paint Mount Fuji and added texture to make it more dynamic as it has a simple shape. This is done using colour pencils and white oil pastel for the snow on the tip of the mountain. I went for a rough texture for the sky using oil pastels as well.
Japanese Hannya Mask: This mask is used in Noh theatre and given its intimidating and frightening appearance, I used it to depict an angry and frustrated self.
Materials: Since I wanted to focus on the expression of the Hannya mask, I decided to keep it simple with just the outline of the facial features using watercolour, and added a textured background using oil pastel.
The capybara is an animal known to to be calm and still which reflects a soothed self.
Materials: I used oil pastel to create the hairy effect of animals with acrylic as the base. Colour pencils were used to draw the features such as the eyes ears and mouth.
Ego 3
I wanted to capture the free spirited feeling that Australia gives. I chose to depict this through the horizon, the beach, as well as the sky.
Materials: For this panel, I decided to try something new by making a collage using a photograph and some traditional drawings as I though the ocean is best captured using a raw photograph. I added prominent elements of Australia like koalas and people relaxing at the beach.
Ego 4
The choice of colours for this setting was inspired by Mondrian’s painting which is an abstract piece of a bird’s eye view of Broadway.
The elements are include signboards of broadway shows and art works I saw at New York which inspired me. They are also visual representations of creativity and culture of this city. The signboards are warped in a linear perspective in the final piece as there are tons of signboards in New York which are huge and converge to a vanishing point. I felt this reflected the long and straight streets of the city.
