WEEK 7-8
Chan Meiling 0337771
Design Principles/ Bachelors of Design (Hons) in Creative Media/ Taylor's University/ Project 1
For project 1, we are required to create an artwork in A4 size. Before I start doing some idea sketches, I decided to jot down something about myself so that I would have a better idea on the direction that I am going for.
Brainstorming Process
Moving on next, I started to think of some self-portrait ideas:
Idea Sketches
For the first idea, it is about how I need my own space while doing my own work. People around me always tell me about I'm always a workaholic and I do enjoy working in a comfortable and quiet environment so I decided to put my workspace in a jar to represent isolation in work.
My next idea is about me laying in bushes and surrounded by flowers with eyes in the middle. These flowers are used to represent I care too much on how people perceive me and the reason why there is a tape on my mouth is that I don't really feel comfortable saying out my thoughts much when it comes to things that are personal.
Moving on to my third idea, I have decided to choose to develop on this. Hence, there will be a further explanation of this idea in my final work.
For this fourth idea, it is an idea of me covering parts of my face in a defensive manner. The explanation behind this idea is because I don't like how it feels when people know what is going on in my head.
As for this last idea, I decided to use some symbols. The rounded shapes represent eyes while my face is pasted on a signboard in front of a wall. The idea behind it is how I care too much on people's opinion and get affected by it quite a lot but I don't show it out.
At the beginning of my project 1 process, I decided to choose colour pencil on black paper as my material after my little cousin showed me her artwork on black scratch paper.
An example image of black scratch paper
Visual Research Image:
Since I do not have black scratch paper, I have decided to test out colour pencil on black paper.
Exploration
After testing out the colours I have decided to use white and the primary colours for my self-portrait.
Exploration on tracing paper
Then I started to draw it out on a tracing paper to avoid mistakes and have back up just in case.
Self-portrait attempt on black paper
However, after I did the actual artwork of my self-portrait using colour pencils, I realised that I just don't like the way it turns out. Since I did not like how it turns out, I have decided to try this idea out with a different medium.
After some planning and thinking process, I decided to use photoshop for my self-portrait idea because I wanted to use blending tools in photoshop to bring out some effects.
Images that were taken by myself
I started off by taking a picture of myself and my hand.
Image of vintage hand mirror used
Since I do not have a hand mirror, I have decided to go and search for hand mirror images. The reason why I chose this picture is that I like the design of this hand mirror and I feel like the upper part could look like a tiara.
Exploration using photoshop:
Since this self-portrait idea is quite simple, I have decided to add more textures on it by adding many different types of paper and wall texture to add more elements to it. I have tried arranging the paper texture in many different manners and tried to arrange it applying to the design principles that I've learnt previously.
Final Artwork for my self-portrait:
Description:
For this self-portrait, the meaning and idea behind it is about how I usually look quite grumpy or tensed up and people have always told me that I have a resting sad face or an RBF. The reason why I'm holding a mirror is that I always remind myself to control my facial expression from time to time so that people will not get the wrong idea of my emotions. Even though I do know that sometimes we shouldn't really care what others think and just be yourself, I still do think that my facial expression could affect someone's else mood and I would want to avoid that. This is because I can see myself in a situation feeling uncomfortable or worried if someone around me having facial expressions like that all the time as I have no idea what's going on in their minds. I personally do not think that controlling these facial expressions require a lot of efforts even though it can be quite tiring sometimes. Hence, I just want to remind myself constantly so that people around me would be more comfortable and avoid misunderstandings as well.
FEEDBACK
After seeing my idea sketches and listening to my descriptions, Dr Jinchi said that she finds the first, second and fourth idea more interesting compared to the rest. She said that she could tell that the first idea represents me, judging from her observations during our physical class on campus. Since this project is a self-portrait, she said that she would not give too many opinions on which I should go for so that I could have more of my own opinion as well. So I told her that I like the mirror idea the most.
REFLECTIONS
For this project 1, I actually struggled quite a lot with deciding on what medium should I use since we have no restrictions at all. I was quite frustrated as I felt that I spent too much time exploring and my first attempt on doing this self-portrait did not really turn out to be something I like. However, I do think that having a self-portrait idea as an assignment is actually pretty good for a design student so that we will get to reflect and understand more about ourselves in order to come up with an artwork that reflects us and what we like.
Comments
Post a Comment