THE FINAL OUTCOME

First Row:

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Drained Me + Nature = Therapeutic

Whenever I feel drained or overloaded with work, I tend to go to my balcony and look at the sky and the trees outside my house. Looking at the blue skies not masked by clouds, or changing colours during sunset; the birds sitting on the trees chirping or flying back to feed their babies, it refreshes me and gives me energy to face my workload again.

Drained Me:

I decided to use a dark blue background for all the panels in the first column. But for this panel, it represents the tiredness in me. I also added strips of dark blue washi tape to mimic prison bars to show that I am trapped in my own mind and drained by the workload.

Nature:

This one is pretty self-explanatory, I added some foam adhesive to the trees and layered them to give them more depth and dimension.

Therapeutic:

I chose a yellow background for the third column as it represents energy. I made my face green to show that I have been “healed” by nature and refreshed. Then, since it didn’t convey the feeling of therapeutic enough, I added my eyes, closed to show that I am resting.

Second Row:

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Youngest Me + Around family = Princess

Being the youngest in the family, my parents and even my brother tend to give me a lot of love (which I am very thankful for) and pamper me.

Youngest Me:

I used a pacifier to portray “youngest” and used my glasses to represent me.

Around family:

My parents are holding to my hands on each side. Pretty self-explanatory

Princess:

I gave myself Princess Bubblegum’s crown from Adventure Time. Her age changes according to how much gum she has in her. I used this to portray myself as I feel that around my family, I am suddenly reverted back to a 13 year old, or maybe even younger.

Third Row:

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Me + Studying = Distracted

Whenever I am studying and reading my notes, I find myself unable to focus on the large chunk of words in front of me and end up turning to Youtube or Instagram.

Me: 

Once again, I portrayed myself using my glasses and added words in the lenses to convey the idea that I am trying to study

Studying:

This is to represent those days when we still had textbooks and all they had were whole chunks of words in them. Pretty self-explanatory too

Distracted:

I used various icons of some things that often succeed in distracting me. I placed these icons above me to show that it has won over me and the words are below to show that i have forgotten about or given up on studying.

Fourth Row:

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Quiet Me + Around large groups of people = Almost invisible

Since I am naturally already a very quiet person, around large groups of people, I rarely, if not never, speak. Hence making me almost invisible. This is especially the case when I am with a large group of people that I have just met. In fact, there have been times where they have went ahead without me, completely forgetting that I was with them.

Quiet Me:

Lips taped over. Pretty self-explanatory, to show that my personality has pulled me back from speaking

Around large groups of people:

I used speech bubbles to represent the many conversations happening when large groups of people gather together.

Almost invisible:

I tried something a little different here and used the same colour in the whole panel. I then cut out a silhouette with diagonal strips of washi tape to disrupt the pattern from the background so that it is still visible to the viewer, not completely invisible. I also added some foam tape to the silhouette to enhance that effect a bit more with the shadow casted on the background.


Here’s the full display of my final panels!

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REFLECTIONS

I really enjoyed using washi tape for this project as it is what I would usually do anyway. I really underestimated the amount of time needed to make this as I had to cut out each individual element and make them look identical, since I wanted some elements to remain the same throughout my panels (such as my glasses, which were the toughest to keep it identical and the toughest to cut out in my opinion). While it is sad that I had wasted so much tape on this project, I don’t really mind since I really like the final pieces that I produced.

For this project, I was initially quite confused with the brief. We were supposed to come up with 4 rows of:

ME + SETTING = ME/MY REACTION TO THE SETTING

I did not know what kind of settings to use since the examples shown were from the previous year and their brief was slightly different.

 

THE MEDIUM

But I decided to settle on the medium I wanted to use first. I decided to use washi tape for all my panels because I have a ton of washi tape, in all sorts of colours. I feel that washi tape represents me since I love to craft and decorate my journals and planners. I also felt that the vibrant colours and patterns would add more detail and interest to my otherwise plain and simple designs.

Here’s my collection:

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THE COLOUR SCHEME

I first did some research on what different colours meant and I found this website that had a very detailed description about each colour.

After looking at all the colours described, I felt that blue was the most applicable to me. People often describe me as a calm person and personally I find myself to be quite loyal (hopefully, my friends agree).

 

Here’s the description for BLUE:

¨      Blue is the color of the sky and sea.

¨      It is often associated with depth and stability.

¨      It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.

¨      Blue is considered beneficial to the mind and body. It slows human metabolism and produces a calming effect.

¨      Blue is strongly associated with tranquility and calmness.

¨      In heraldry, blue is used to symbolize piety and sincerity.

¨      You can use blue to promote products and services related to cleanliness (water purification filters, cleaning liquids), air and sky (airlines, airports, air conditioners), water and sea (sea voyages, mineral water).

¨      Blue is linked to consciousness and intellect.

¨      Blue is a masculine color; according to studies, it is highly accepted among males.

¨      Dark blue is associated with depth, expertise, and stability; it is a preferred color for corporate America.

¨      Avoid using blue when promoting food and cooking, because blue suppresses appetite.

¨      When used together with warm colors like yellow or red, blue can create high-impact, vibrant designs; for example, blue-yellow-red is a perfect color scheme for a superhero.

 

Green was also another applicable colour to me as I like harmony and tend to avoid confrontation as best as I can. The website also suggests that green sometimes denotes a lack of experience which I used in my designs to show my lack of experience in design prior to coming to ADM.

 

Here’s the description for GREEN:

¨      Green is the color of nature. It symbolizes growth, harmony, freshness, and fertility.

¨      Green has strong emotional correspondence with safety.

¨      Dark green is also commonly associated with money.

¨      Green has great healing power. It is the most restful color for human eyes; it can improve vision.

¨      Green suggests stability and endurance.

¨      Sometimes green denotes lack of experience; for example, a ‘greenhorn’ is a novice.

¨      In heraldry, green indicates growth and hope.

¨      Green, as opposed to red, means safety; it is the color of free passage in road traffic.

¨      Use green to indicate safety when advertising drugs and medical products.

¨      Green is directly related to nature, so you can use it to promote ‘green’ products.

¨      Dull, darker green is commonly associated with money, financial world, banking, and Wall Street.

 

Thus, I decided to use these two colours and go with an analogous colour scheme. However, because an analogous colour scheme is often seen as boring and dull, I decided to add another colour to the mix, YELLOW, which is the complementary colour of blue. I felt that this worked out nicely as yellow is also used to represent cheerfulness and lightheartedness, or a ‘kiddish’ feeling. Which I tried to portray in a few of my panels.

 

ARTIST REFERENCES

Way back, I was really interested in using duct tape to make wallets and other items and found this artist who used duct tape to make portraits of people. Although the style is very different, he was the inspiration for using washi tape as my medium. That was when I first saw that tape could be used to create art as well.

Here are some of his instagram photos (@tuffduckwallets)

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NASA FUNAHARA

I came across this artist as I searched for washi tape art. She uses washi tape to recreate famous paintings.

Here are some of her creations:

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I was really impressed by her works but knew that it would require washi tapes of varying shades of one colour to obtain a realistic look, as seen in her recreation of the Mona Lisa. However, the thing I noticed from her works is the use of colours which gives the pieces a vibrant and lively look, unlike the original paintings.

I also searched on Google and saw that washi tape art was often very cheerful and vibrant. Hence, I decided to stick to a simplistic and cheerful style in my panels to convey that feeling.

 

THE PROCESS

For all my panels, I chose a few washi tapes that had similar colours and made a background.

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Then I also laid out strips of washi tape and cut out the different shapes from them.

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Here’s me making the book for one of my panels. 

Next up, what my panels mean and a look at the final outcomes!