Assignment 1: 6 Human Emotions with digital images

For this assignment, we were tasked to present 4-6 images that express basic human emotions. I chose to work on the following 4 emotions: Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Happiness in the format of a visual narrative. I chose the Digital painting medium to develop my digital painting skills, which I am not very acquainted with.

Initially, I wanted to express the emotions through the different portrayals and actions of water. I aimed to explore how a still and tranquil water body can evoke acute feelings that are raging and turbulent. However, I realized that I was unable to confidently illustrate water due to its abstract character that was difficult to personify. Having reached a dead end, I then turned to a more feasible representation — the figure of a little girl. I deliberately did not illustrate her facial features (or even specific details) so as to keep the enigmatic character that leaves room for the faculties of the imagination.

Initially, I wanted to express the emotions through the different portrayals and actions of water. I aimed to explore how a still and tranquil water body can evoke raging and acute emotions. However, I realized that I was unable to confidently illustrate water: it was intensely difficult to personify due to its abstract and turbulent character.

Having reached a dead end, I then turned to a more feasible representation— to use a protagonist in space to relate to emotion. I chose the figure of a little girl: a symbol of naivete, purity, capriciousness and endless wonder. I deliberately did not illustrate her facial features (or even specific details) to leave room for the faculties of the imagination.

With this new representation, I had to update the story type— from distinct and atomic frames to a narrative that flowed from the first frame.

I drew upon my initial ideas of emotive water as the background to complement the protagonist’s emotions. To elicit the same emotion in the audience, I also employed colour theories of emotion for each scene.

The first draft of the story is:

Sadness: Father leaves daughter; rainy scene
Fear: Daughter alone in room, buckets collecting dripping water, imagination ran wild in fear of the dark and of ghosts
Anger: Daughter shouting to the stormy sea in frustration, in the direction of the foreign town
Happiness: Father returns; dew hanging off greenery shining in the sun

Upon further development to add more content and excitement to the story, I came up with the final story:

Sadness: Father leaves daughter; rainy scene
Fear: Daughter is left alone in her room to fend her fear of the dark. Her imagination ran wild as she faintly hear something being dragged across the room. In actual fact, a ‘ghost’ has took her shoes away.
Disgust: Daughter realises the next morning that her favourite shoes are gone. Wearing her old slippers, she went out in search for it. Wet mud splattered all over her skirt and legs, evoking a strong sense of disgust from her. (note: not disgust at the fact that someone took her shoes because this will be too strong for a young girl)
Happiness: She found her shoes! In fact, the ghost was on its way to return the shoes as well, after modelling and making its own ghost shoe.

Some sketches that I drew before starting work. I feel that I work better when I sketch my thoughts on pen and paper.

One key point that I experimented with was whether it was possible to illustrate all four panels with the placement of the shoe being fixed, while presenting the images different perspectives. I managed to do it, but the sadness and disgust images are rather similar. Perhaps more could be done to experiment with alternative povs :>

Final Images

Sadness

Father leaves daughter; rainy scene

Fear

Daughter is left alone in her room to fend her fear of the dark. Her imagination ran wild as she faintly hear something being dragged across the room. In actual fact, a ‘ghost’ has took her shoes away.

disgust

Daughter realises the next morning that her favourite shoes are gone. Wearing her old slippers, she went out in search for it. Wet mud splattered all over her skirt and legs, evoking a strong sense of disgust from her.

Happiness

She found her shoes at last! In fact, the ghost was on its way to return the shoes as well, after modelling and making its own ghost shoe.

I am very happy with the final work even though the quality and style isn’t that consistent throughout (something to take note of next time). Having worked mainly with traditional medium and less with digital, this assignment helped me pick up many useful techniques from photoshop. Now I am really starting to appreciate digital painting!

September 10, 2017September 23, 2017

2D Project 1 My Line is Emo — Final

And it comes! The day of final submission! Three weeks of mark-making and it’s now over!

My work:

Top down: Amazement, exasperation, affection, melancholy, mortification, bliss

Infancy — Amazement

the marks, while representing amazement, have a touch of inquisitiveness in them
the bubble-like marks encapsulates the curiosity and wonder a child feels as he/she interacts with the world for the first time
questions and wonders pop up like bubbles in their minds spontaneously
every ink blot/circle is unique -> every child interprets our world differently, but their interpretations are all equally mesmerising and filled with precious innocence

Adolescence — Exasperation

The marks record our rebellious years where our fluctuating moods and identity confusion causes us to be dissatisfied with and exasperated at many things, be it towards our peers, our family or our parents
use of palette knife to slash paint onto the paper is just like how one feels like ‘killing’/’strangling’ a person when that person simply does not understand what you’re driving at
the thicker smears of paint is just like the huge SIGHs we make after each gradual build-up of exasperation
expresses the uninhibited aggression and frustration a teenager feels at that stage
It also portrays teenagers’ urgency to make an impression and assert their identity and importance in this world

Love — affection

As we move through our teenage years into adulthood, we start looking for our other ‘half’ (the symmetry in this mark alludes to this)
the dreamy and fantasy-like feeling suggests intimacy and sweetness —illustrates our hopes and ideals for our partner
the emergence of love-birds-like figures from hazy fumes shows how the search for our true love often begins without us knowing what we are looking for, but it eventually reveals itself to us
Notice how the images are similar but not identical -> what I am trying to convey here is that we will find flaws in even our perfect fit, but we must learn to embrace them and accept them for who they are

Mid-Life crisis — Melancholy

Looming spectres and the use of lines of different weights and intensity creates the illusion of depth — some of our troubles are further away while others are right in our face
Hazy background -> melancholy feelings do not usually have an identifiable source of sadness, yet the feeling is pervasive and omnipresent
Sparse marks help to convey the idea of hollowness and emptiness
Using the palette knife to slash the paper with ink exemplifies how pangs of grief strike a melancholic person

Illness/the approach to old age — Mortification

Paper marche effect created by using newspaper with glue and water
The marks were made by crumpling the paper, and then rolling the roller across the creases
memory fades, vision darkens, creases appear
the use of newspaper: words giving themselves up to the void, along with all the meaning they used to contain
fragmentation: highlights the dissonance/ confused state of mind one is in as you grow frail
Death looms, close enough to be weighing on your chest

Before the final end — bliss

This mark presents a strong juxtaposition to the ‘mortification’ strip
One learns to find peace with oneself and finally achieve a sense of serenity and solidarity
The cloudy/ dreamy mark prompts one to reminisce about one’s childhood and life experience
Death becomes a relief from suffering
the soft outlines represents how death is like a restful/gentle sleep

Presentation!

I really love the museum-style presentation — we lay out our works just like how they’ll look in a gallery and we are walked through the works one by one. It was really intriguing to learn about what my peers did and how they interpreted different emotions differently from me.

Thanks friends for the encouraging comments :D

Some Reflections

Overall I’m rather proud of my work but I feel that I could have explored even more with different mediums and materials. I initially thought that this project would be easy, but that was not true at all — it was only through tireless experimentation that I am able to generate my final pieces. But it was only through this process that I came to realise the importance of experimentation as an indispensable part of the creative process because there were so many inspirations that only revealed themselves to me along the way. All in all, mark-making is a highly therapeutic activity. I really had a lot of fun working on this project :)

September 10, 2017September 23, 2017

2D Project 1 My Line is Emo — process

Here are some documentation of the process I’ve been through for mark-making. I realise I’m not a person who can multitask very well, and so I kept on forgetting to whip out my phone to record down my experimentation process.

Initial emotions research:

I wanted to get a clear idea of what each emotions represented. Hence I did several small mind-maps for each emotion category and researched on each specific emotion to ensure that my understanding of that emotion is correct.

Experimentation for melancholy:

The feeling of melancholy is something that I believe everyone can instinctively understand as the wrenching throb in the heart but troubles to eloquently put the emotion into words. And so when I tried to express melancholy in my marks, I tried to keep the the marks to a minimum so that the empty space (the paper) gives a more pervasive feeling of hollowness and emptiness.

I made this by spreading glue around the paper first, and then sprinkling charcoal crumbs previously crushed. When the glue dries, only the charcoal is left behind, obediently following the trail of glue. I thought the idea was interesting, but I didn’t have any use for it in my final 6 emotions

To see more of my process, please refer to my visual journal :DD

This was what I had after a week of experimentation:

Consultation with Mimi

Mimi said that my works were too symmetrical (I agree!!!). I actually did try making some strips that were asymmetrical but I discarded them because they looked too bad. But I should really experiment more with having asymmetrical designs or having the idea of gradual up of emotions in order to make my works more exciting
Mimi also mentioned that I shouldn’t be working on newsprint alone. I took her advice and experimented with canvas, watercolour paper and newspaper later on :) I also tried to vary my medium by using acrylic and watercolour (wanted to use oil but it wouldn’t dry in time)
Can try collaging the works! See if anything interesting comes out of it!
There has to be an overarching theme that can hold the separate emotions together (can be in the form of songs, stories, phenomenon, or just anything)
Even though Mimi said that I have a wide variations of line work, she said to be careful when choosing my final 6 strips to prevent having the works looking too similar (especially since I seem to have the tendency to product mark-making that fills up the entire page)

Working on my learning points from the consult, I continued experimenting with more emotions, specifically working on points raised during the consultation.

Working with asymmetry

Working with different medium:

Initial idea was to simply roll a roller over crumpled paper

I decided to work on this idea by introducing newspaper as a medium to create a paper mache effect.

I brainstormed for a suitable theme to make my emotions cohesive and coherent when seen in a certain sequence. I had a few ideas off the top of my mind but they were somewhat random. At the end, since we are dealing with emotions in this project, I started to think about what emotions themselves signify. I felt that emotions are something very ‘raw’ and very ‘unique’ to humans. Yes, some animals can feel emotions as well, but they’re not as varied nor can they reach the same depth as human emotions can. Along this line of thought, I decided that I wanted to do something that ties in very closely to what makes a human human, which is how I arrived at my theme “life”.

Brainstorming:

With this as my starting point, I started to narrow down emotions that I want to deal with. I identified the different stages of life and the emotions one most probably would have felt at that point in time:

Infancy
Adolescence
Teenager – Adulthood
Mid-life Crisis
Illness/ approaching old age
Before the final end

(Check out the journal for the full description for each stage :> )

From my huge pile of emotions, I picked out 6 emotions most representative of what one would have felt at the six identified stages of life:

Infancy — Amazement
Adolescence — Exasperation
Teenager – Adulthood — Lust
Mid-life Crisis — Melancholy
Illness/ approaching old age — Mortification
Before the final end — Bliss

I went on making the final emotions used for submission. However, I realised that the same marks can never be replicated. Even subtle differences can make a big difference to the general mood the marks elicit.

In particular, I couldn’t get ‘Lust’ the way I wanted at all even after multiple, numerous, countless number of tries and kilos of paint wasted (just kidding). In a spurt of frustration, I folded a strip that I was doing halfway, intending to discard it. However, when I opened the strip, it dawned on me how perfect Warhol’s Rorscharch technique can be applied. I started experimenting more with this technique, constantly being pleasantly surprised whenever I open the folded paper.

And so, one day before submission, I changed “Lust” to “Affection”, an emotion I thought best described the ink blot I made.

In the end, my final six emotions were:

Infancy — Amazement
Adolescence — Exasperation
Teenager – Adulthood — Affection
Mid-life Crisis — Melancholy
Illness/ approaching old age — Mortification
Before the final end — Bliss

September 10, 2017September 23, 2017

2D Project 1 My Line is Emo – first experimentaion

This week’s lesson was thoroughly enjoyable as I tried my hand at mark making. This was my first attempt at mono-printing and the printing machine, which were immensely interesting and fun!

Some mark making tools I brought to experiment:

leaves, tree bark, rocks, sea shells
aluminium foil, corrugated cardboard, cling wrap, non-slip mat
bottle cap, tissue, syringe
velcro, thick rubber band, buttons
my fingers

Mimi told us not to bother about the aesthetics of our prints and to explore freely — which was what I did. Here are some prints I made:

I managed to get the bold lines by using the handle of the roller. These lines feel very raw and strong — potential marks for the more intense emotions. Also, the mono-printing method is almost unpredictable because I’m just making the marks blindly without being able to see what I’m doing.

Printed a leaf! Can only vaguely see the shape and veins. And it’s too obvious that it’s a leaf — probably not very suitable here since we want to stay away from very literal/ representative marks.

Experimented with the use of combs here. The neat rows of lines produces a very nice effect. The thick rows of lines were created with corrugated cardboard.

Prints of crushed aluminium foil! The effect is really cool if enlarged, but since it’s very condensed and crammed, it doesn’t look very nice from far.

Marks made by dipping a rock into ink and rolling it around the paper. It’s quite beautiful, especially how the ink is concentrated and sparse in different areas.

Linocut! First time working around with the tools. It wasn’t hard to cut the linoleum, but getting the shape/line I wanted was hard. The lines I cut also looked rather similar — the edges are all rounded.

A linocut I made at the end of the class! I didn’t have anything in mind and was just cutting based on instincts. I’m very satisfied with this print :) (though mildly annoyed that the print I rushed through with minimal thought turned out the nicest)

Some other prints:

With this round of exploration, I’m more familiar with the tools and materials and how we can create different kinds of marks. I have a better idea of what this project is about and I’m ready to experiment and explore a lot more. Excited for the weeks to come! :D

August 23, 2017September 13, 2017

My Line is Emo — Research on Artists

I am rather fascinated by how non-representational mark making is able to express so many varied emotions. This means that the marks must contain some form of inner significance – one that is able to trigger our thoughts, transport us back to a memory, and resonate with us.

On second thought, however, it makes sense that non-representational marks are able to express our feelings. Emotions are not thoughts after all. They are not literal, not tangible, and not exactly rational. It follows that expressive mark making is indeed an apt medium to portray them.

To learn more about mark making as well as to source for inspirations, here are some artists whom I have researched on:

Ed Moses

Ed Moses is an American abstract artist. To him, art is about “exploring the phenomenal world”. Since the phenomenal world is so diverse and impermanent, it comes as no surprise that Ed Moses’ approach to art is highly experimental. It is quite obvious from his works that he refrains from being limited to a certain style.

Ed Moses does not consciously dictate what to do in front of a canvas and is happy to accept whatever ‘accidents’ and mistakes as part of his artistic process.

Some of his works:

Accessed from http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-ed-moses-at-90-20160501-story.html

Love the subtle use of red!

The bright red stripe is so bold and striking!

Accessed from https://newamericanpaintings.com/blog/ed-moses-greenbronze

Personally, Ed Moses’ paintings are really enchanting. He varies the transparency of paint, fracture lines abruptly, and smears paints across the canvas liberally, allowing the elements to emerge from and sink in the canvas – just like the ebb and flow of waves

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was an American artist and a leading figure of the Pop Art movement who played an influential role in contemporary art and culture.

Accessed from https://www.gagosian.com/exhibitions/september-21-1996–andy-warhol

Rorschach is a series of paintings that Warhol made in 1984. These paintings are essentially ‘ink blots’, with inspiration drawn from “The Ink Blot test” created by Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach. Patients had to interpret ink blots presented to them, while psychologist would help to decipher their mental and emotional states based on what they perceive.

Interestingly, Warhol misunderstood the clinical process and thought that the patients were supposed to create their own ink blots for the psychologist to decipher – which led to the creation of the Rorschach paintings.

Warhol used the pour-and-fold technique, which helped him to achieve symmetry.

Accessed from http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/andy-warhol-1928-1987-rorschach-5621967-details.aspx

Accessed from http://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/pghinsidersguide/ae/hidden-gems/

Accessed from http://www.contemporaryartdaily.com/2009/10/andy-warhol-the-last-decade-at-milwaukee-art-museum/warhol_10/

The paintings are huge!!

Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt was an American artist who played a leading role in the Conceptual Movement. He placed great emphasis on the concept or idea of his work, rendering inherent narrative and descriptive imagery to be unimportant. As seen from his works, they are all non-representational.

His artistic explorations were systematic: they generally dealt with geometric elements and patterns – visually appealing nevertheless. Interestingly, as he stresses on the importance of ‘concept’, for large part of his wall drawings, LeWitt only conceive and plan them – the actual works are usually executed by draftsman.

Accessed from http://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/en/sol-lewitt-wall-drawings-1968-2007

Accessed from https://jewishcurrents.org/september-9-sol-lewitt/

LeWitt believes “each person draws a line differently and each person understands words differently”. This is one of the reason he chose to let draftsmen carry out his plan:

Draftsman inject their own interpretation of the plan into the actual work, allowing the final work to morph into something elusively different from the original plan, yet it is still the same artwork. Any misinterpretation or error made by the draftsman are accepted as part of the work.

Accessed from http://ex-chamber-memo5.up.n.seesaa.net/ex-chamber-memo5/image/1sol-lewitt.jpeg?d=a0

Accessed from http://urania-josegalisifilho.blogspot.sg/2012/01/sol-lewitt-paragraphs-on-conceptual-art.html

I have a curious observation, that is – although these three artists differ greatly in style, all three embrace mistakes and ‘accidents’ as part of the artistic process. They do not eliminate them, but rather generously and happily incorporate them into the final work. This is something I should learn from them and not be fearful of committing errors. I should always keep an open mind and be willing to continuously experiment with new ideas.