Anti-Drug Art Competition 2009

Poster colour, A3

I submitted this for the Anti-Drug Art competition in 2009, it was also our EOY painting if I remember correctly.

Description of my painting I did when I submitted it:

The person at the bottom left hand corner, is squatting down, facing the corner. She is a drug addict, who is being attacked by the drugs. As she gets weaker, the drugs get stronger because she is already addicted to drugs. The drugs drive her to a corner until she feels miserable and helpless.

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I like how the pills and syringes are painted. The syringes have that transparent effect. I thought I could have painted more pills and syringes and make it the whole streak filled with pills and syringes so that it seems like the drugs are stronger and overwhelming. I also thought the yellow streak fading away to the sides and darkening when it reaches the corner with the person gave more focus and leads the viewers eyes. But I think my blending techniques then weren't very good that's why it doesn't look smooth and well-blended.

Ceramics

Ceramics (2009)

It was our first try at ceramics and Mr Lim wanted us to experiment with textures! I remember creating textures with many different random things around the art room. We made 5 square pieces of clay then stuck them together using slip. Then we started to make different textures/designs around the box. I wanted to keep it simple and focus on creating textures so I didn't add on any other pieces of clay on it. I enjoyed the process a lot because it was very hands-on as compared to other works we did. We used our hands and had to creating textures with different tools. We also had to use our hands to control, press, pinch, and stick the pieces of clay together to form a box. Also, I liked the fact that we tried out a different medium instead of doing pencil drawings. It was a very experimental process because we did not have to work within a theme but just do whatever we want on the box.

Nature

Tree bark, pencil, 2010

Butterfly, pencil, 2010

Bougainvillea, pencil, 2010

Small flowers, pencil, 2010

Small flowers, pencil, 2010

Sunflower, pencil, 2010

Orchid, pencil, 2010

Pollen/stigma, pencil, 2010

Dried leaf, pencil, 2010

Water droplet, pencil, 2010

Cat Whiskers, pencil, 2010

I did these drawings as inspiration for our ceramics module. I like the dried leaf one the most, because it looks the most realistic out of all the pencil drawings I did. There was close observation in my works as I had many small details drawn. However, I thought the tones that I used were rather limited so it looked rather similar and boring. I could have maximised the tonal range and made it look more realistic! I also thought I had good proportions in these drawings :-)

This is my final ceramics work:

As you can see, I've used the shapes/patterns of the leaves/flowers I drew on the surface of the pot.

I've also made textures similar to the leaves/barks on the pot! I also oxidised the leaf parts because it's green, so it'll look like the leaves. I like how one of the long leaf pops out!

A random wooden stick I made :s

Random wooden stick in the pot. The inner surface is smooth and the whole pot is glazed.

I think through this work, I was able to explore more on different textures, and I was more experienced because we had done a ceramics work before. You can see my first ceramics work here. I am happy with how my work turned out to be, and it didnt really crack in the kiln! I also like how I combined all the textures and patterns onto the pot, making it look interesting. I realised my works are always pretty simple with a few important elements in it.

Black & white

We had to do pin-hole photography for our AEP SIA in Sec 2, and these are my shots!

This was my final photograph I decided to submit:

Write-up for this photograph:

This photograph of the school clock tower is taken from the view of the field. We usually have out PE lessons there and we run around the track to warm-up or have our 2.4km run. For those who hate PE lessons, they would look at the clock tower once in awhile to check the time as they can't wait for the lessons to be over.

I think I could have made the image a little clearer and sharper if I had not shook the pin-hole camera. Not only that, I could have been more careful when cutting the papers, to prevent less fingerprints. I could have aimed and place the camera at a stable place, or stick them with tape.

Through this activity, I've learnt how to be patient. It was tiring to stay in the darkroom and wait for chemicals to react.

Reflections:

I enjoyed doing pinhole photography and have learnt the simplest version of taking a photo. It was tiring walking in and out of the dark room, capturing images of our school with out tin can. I even tried to take an image of the school from the overhead bridge, but it was not successful. If I had the chance, I would definitely try it again. It was interesting to look out for special scenes around the school and try to create a unique perspective. Although taking just a photo and developing it would take such a long time, it was definitely worth it. I liked the moment when I see an image slowly appearing on the photographic paper in the developing chemical.

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After the pin-hole activity, Mr Lim let us use his film camera to take some photos. We only had black & white film!

After going through this 2 activities, I realised it was pretty difficult to do black and white photography. Before that, I was not exposed to b&w photography. I thought the challenging part about b&w photography is that, it is not easy to capture the essence of the subject matter without colours because what we see with our eyes are colours. So it would take a lot of skill and experience to take a good b&w photograph that can show viewers what the photographer is trying to tell! Also, I feel that b&w photography makes things a little more dull and vintage..... and reminds me of times when there were only b&w televisions.

Don't Forget

6 x A4

Water colour, pen (2011)

I started off doing my coursework, following the theme of relationship between people who are important to me and treasuring time with friends/family, because I feel that people around me play a big role in my life and I wanted to do something important to me for my coursework. I have chosen to present my final work in a calendar format, featuring 6 important people in my life. They are my father, Shiyin, Chermaine, Enning, Lynn and Weiping. I chose to present it in a 2012 calendar as I wanted use it to act as a reminder for myself to spend time and maintain our relationships as relationships need time to foster and are based on what we do together, or how we spend time together. Also, I've always liked making art that is practical and usable in our lives, because I think that makes the art-making process more meaningful.

After that, I moved on to taking photographs of scenes where my friend/father and me are together, spending time and doing something together. I wanted to place these scenes into the calendar as I feel that to maintain relationships with other people, we have to spend time together and at the same time do something together to improve our relationship.

And then I proceeded to drawing these scenes out in pencil, pen and water colour. I chose water colour and my main medium and used pen to enhance the lines of the subject matter in the painting. The reason why I chose water colour was because I thought water colour is smoother, natural and less harsh as compared to other mediums like oil paint, acrylic and colour pencil. I thought the colours of water colour painting would be able to bring out the idea of the scene more. Also, I wanted to explore water colour painting because I was inspired by Dallas Clayton. I saw his works here and seeing his works made me want to try out water colour. Also, Dawn Tan! I found her blog a year ago and have always read her blog since then. I've always liked how she used water colour for her food paintings. You can see my post about her here.

After which, I did around 3/4 compositions for each scene/page of the calendar and started on my final. I painted all the scenes on A4 water colour paper and scanned them in to put it into my calendar template! I had 2 layouts, for the portrait and landscape paintings, you can see them here. I also added in birthdates of these people into the calendar, because we most often spend time with a person during his/her birthday celebrations and I think that birthday celebrations always bring people together. Also, birthdates are more personal and representative of a person.

Throughout the entire coursework process, I was rather slow and I thought I did too little research drawings. I could have drawn more and explored more into the scenes and elements of each painting. But seeing the final work I've came up with, it feels very rewarding and I'm proud of my work because I know I did put in hard work and tried my best to make it my best and final work in Nanyang AEP! There were definitely times when I feel annoyed with my works but at the end, I still try my best because I loved art and loved what I was doing.

Also, I've definitely improved my water colour painting & pen drawing skills! I still like these 2 mediums because I'm able to control them well :-) I think being able to paint is amazing and it is also rather therapeutic? Whenever I paint a particular scene, it makes me think more about the person, and my relationship with him/her. This work is pretty personal because I felt a lot for it when I painted the paintings. Another thing I've gained/learnt through this coursework is the importance of friendship! I am so thankful for my friends, Val, Cher, Sy, Clare, who've helped me through the coursework process, gave me opinions, ideas and motivated me to continue my work. They also helped me a lot with my 8 prep boards on the submission day!!! I was so stressed/nervous/tired I couldn't really think properly then (thanks to Linhui too!)

Elena Kalis

Elena Kalis' series of underwater photographs, Alice in Waterland.

I've looked through Elena Kalis' photographs and I found this series extremely beautiful and dreamy. Taking photographs underwater makes her subject matter look softer, and it has a little floating effect. I think it is not easy to take photographs underwater because there are many things you cannot control underwater, like hair, clothes, and you would have to direct the model in what action to do and capture the right moment quickly before the model floats up. But I think that something beautiful that can be achieved through underwater photography are reflections and air bubbles in the water. These reflections and air bubbles adds effect to her photographs.

I have never really seen underwater photography like what Elena Kalis does, and I find it inspiring because it's a very unique style. Also, I like how Elena Kalis works with the environment, which is water in this case, and make her photographs beautiful by capturing the reflections and air bubbles underwater.

It made me interested in doing underwater photography but...... I do not have underwater photography equipments, waterproof cameras, so I guess I could try underwater photography out by using waterproof disposable film camera!

Photo credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sugarock/

Sec 3 Lifeskills Camp T-shirt Design 2010

My initial ideas, mindmap, research drawings of hand, elements in the design (in pen and pencil)

Compositions:

Arrangement of elements in globe:

Alternative designs:

My final design:

I really liked how my final design turned out to be. This was one of the works that made me realise it was important to do prep work before final because I did my prep drawings diligently! I like how the entire drawing in pen has different thickness and the lines are of different boldness. But I thought I could have done more research drawings to develop my idea and give myself more options to choose from.