Disclaimer: My designs and pieces of work are heavily focused on rationale and levels of thought process. Basically work isn’t solely slapping multiple images from the internet!

Experimentation focuses on:

Digital manipulation

Digital Collage

Juxtaposition

Surrealism

Dada Art

 

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Hi reader! How’s it going?

Well, for me, I’ve not been sleeping and eating well due to this assignment, it was really draining. We have to come up with 4 equations that equates to Me, Better Me, Ideal Me and Me in 5 Years.

 

Wow, that’s simple! Straight forward assignment isn’t it? I already know myself so well! Not.

First things first. Me.

For a start, I needed adjectives and qualities about myself. Apart from making a list to describe myself, I thought it’ll be more interesting to get my friends to describe me.

I passed a piece of paper around a group of friends and here’s what I got

Personally, Val thinks she’s quite jolly, open-minded, dynamic, a little bit of a scatterbrain, out of the box and unconventional. P.S I’m totally not basic!!

From the lists, I got the help of my friends to shortlist and narrowed down to three adjectives to describe what makes me

ADHD + Out of the Box = Dynamic / Explosion (of creative juices)            

While doing this project, I had ADHD. I mean, I always have it. It’s hard for me to even sit still for half an hour, let alone a four-hour tutorial.

So in order to portray this, I visualized a double-vision of me with some trippy effect going on. I chose two out of three of a triad colour combination to give the viewer a slightly unsettling feeling.

To play with the idea of me having ADHD, I felt that I could purposely leave the word looking unfinished.

There, there.

Oh btw, fun fact of the day: Did you know that Leonardo Davinci had traits of having ADHD too? Not just him many others Einstein, Edison, Tesla, Galileo and scores of so called ‘crazy’ people had the classic traits of ADHD/ADD. HERE;S TO CREATIVE AND CRAZY PEOPLE WHOOPEE!

Okay back to this.

As I was being all ADHD and digressing, I came across ‘glitch art’ and I fell back in love with it. I did some experimentation with the same image and here’s how it turned out

 

Trippy eh?

I felt that it needed some illusion of movement therefore I made use of some design synectics such as repetition and overlapping to create the effect I wanted.

Ta-dah. Looks like it has quite a bit going on in there and that’s what I wanted to invoke. I decided to leave out the ‘unfinished work look’ as it won’t appear too tidy.

Next, out of the box. I knew I had to make use of this term and literally have my image out of the box.

I thought of explosions. Things exploding. Things growing out of my torso or even emerging out of the box.

The latter was quite conventional and usually linked with overthinking. Hence I went on with explosions instead.

Wow I look so tumblr!

In colour psychology, red means passion while brown means honesty. When it comes to giving my inputs, my ideas for things that I’m passionate about are always honest. Eg. Fine arts, music, media and Channing Tatum.

To give it a cohesive look with the previous part of the equation, I tempered with the image’s code and installed a glitch effect for this one too

Again, I was using the two of three of the triadic colours for a vibrant mood that at the same time is slightly ‘off’ due to the lack of the third complimenting colour.

So

  +  = ???

Creative Dynamic. Boomz. X-factor.

To portray my creativity I tried to insert creative juices flowing out of my brain.

I was pleased with the repeated elements of smoke and colour cohesion with the previous part of the equation but not contented with the expression im showing. I need more action. MORE DYNAMISM. MORE VAL CRAZINESS.

Creative juices started bursting as I pictured the equation to end with me shooting as I jump fabulously and in dynamism.

Spontaneously I changed into a bikini, grabbed a (toy) gun and started posing and doing jump shots.

Uh huh that’s more like it. Action baby. The two Charlie Angels at the side can be re-positioned though.

Ah that’s better. If you noticed, an X is formed with the pictures of me jumping, to convey the ‘X-factor.’

Better Me

Theme: Poker Cards

Jack of all trades master of none (J poker card) + Acing in one thing (Ace of Hearts) = Blackjack

Jack

Jack of all trades, where I have several things i’m passionate about

Ace

To take away other things in the picture and  ace in one thing with all my heart

Note: ACE = 1 in blackjack

Blackjack

Ace + Jack

 

TBC

 

Final Works

Rhyme: There was an Old Woman That Lived in a Shoe

Chosen Line: She had so many children she didn’t know what to do

 

 

Thought Process

Part 1: coming up with objects

Part 2: Incorporating design synectics and adding more relatable objects

Final Work

 

When I looked at this sentence, I was compelled to picture how the poor woman would actually look being caught in that situation.

This led me to come up with these objects to include inside my sketches

• eyes that looked afraid
• hands that were cringing

I went on to think of iconic people that had many children that include

• Mother Teresa
• Angelina Jolie

 

However, after consultation, Mother Teresa was said to be too literal.

Since Mother Teresa was rejected, I decided to work on Angelina  instead.

Children in Angelina’s eyes. That was far too creepy. But I was inclined to play with the idea of freaky, and got inspired by the Myra painting, of collaging children in the image.

Process 1

As for the cringing hands and afraid eyes, I felt that it needed something more to get across that line of the rhyme.

 

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Part 2: Incorporated design synectics to produce different variations

I went on to break the sentence down into two parts to choose more objects to be included

 

She had so many children

she didn’t know what to do

After analysing…

Babies. Children. I definitely needed them in my mood boards to get the first part of the line across

More, more. Give me moaaaaaar

I also thought of more elements / objects in my sketches that are associated with babies or kids that include

• pacifier
• milk bottle
• lollipop
• breastfeeding
• peaceful napping

Having these objects ready I was almost good to go, until I contemplated on its composition.

Thank God for the enlightenment of Design Synectics I was able to churn out a couple of designs easily after applying the elements.

Repetition 

 

 

Radial form

 Freaky baby with mouth open inspired from Ju-on. Inspired process 4

 

Yes that’s breastfeeding

 

Process 2

Inspired by a radial / circular design and made me think of a whirlpool, to communicate the mental state of the woman when “she didn’t know what to do”

Final design 2

Process 3

I liked how the radial form brings across the meaning and at the same time creating some level of aesthetics. Therefore, I worked closely on the radial theme. Kids laying down on the floor and taking up a formation that looks like snowflakes. Inverted the colours to accentuate the mood. More radial form was added later on, in a form of thin lines to give the picture a fuller look. More will be explained at the final work section.

 

Final work 3

 

Scale (and juxtaposition)

 

Repetition & Scale

 

Process 4

 

Since I was bringing across the line “She had so many children she didn’t know what to do”, the old woman was probably creeped out by the number of children she has. This one shows her point of view that probably freaked her out. This was inspired by a previous variation.

 

 

 

Parody

 

 

 

Scale

 

 

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Final 4

 

Final 4 shows different aspects being in the situation of “She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do”

• Emotional
• State of Mind
• Point of view
• How society views her

Printed Mood Boards

Angelina Jolie: This represents the emotional state of the woman, having so many children just like the celebrity. Angelina was a of social icons with many children, therefore I chose her. I portrayed her to look emotional, as if all the children were looking at her, wanting to be adopted. However, she already had so many children, she didnt know what to do and sheds a tear, which reflects her blood daughter Shiloh as well as one of her adopted kids.

 

Whirlpool: This reflects the state of mind of the woman, as she freaks out with the multiple trails of kids stepping all over her, literally. This links back to the first assignment of using lines to portray an emotion. Whirlpools in radial form depicts a person’s mind that’s going out of order, like how she is caught in the situation of having too many kids.

 

Baby Ambush:  This is a way to allow audience to be in the shoes of the old woman, which adds creativity with the perspective used. The “panic eye” is scaled to be bigger than the baby to show her immense state of distress.

 

“Snowflakes”: Looking closely, these are kids multiplied and arranged in a formation of a snowflake. My idea of this was picturing the old lady bringing all her kids to a store, where one by one of them wants to buy something and lays on the floor to in that position throwing tantrums when she says NO. (Inspired by a condom commercial). She gets embarrassed and her eyes show embarrassment, as if hiding and fading away, as well as being lost as society judges. The lines that look birdnest emotes the tingling feeling in the nerves when someone is embarrassed in a situation. The canvas was changed from black to white to accentuate the mood. Lines were added in for the embarrassing effect.