Mystery Art Closet

 We did a review on our Wix websites to prepare for our submissions. As we have done in the last term, we quickly checked through all the icons and links so that they were functioning as intended. All my important links have been functioning properly, however I noticed that the link to my Instagram sketchbook was not functioning.  This may be because of how my account was still in private mode when I used the link for my website, and caused it to malfunction when it was no longer private by the end of Term 2. This problem was easily fixed by refreshing the link.   Otherwise, there were no other malfunctioning links and stock images (which has been replaced last term already) so I went onto prepare the gallery for my portfolio presentation. As my portfolio page is prepared for another tile I simply created a new subpage for this term's portfolio, reused the tile from last term , and linked them together, the tile image to be replaced later on.  Then I changed the text...

 I had a follow up tutorial after the Student Talk, discussing on the progress on my project. Link to Tutorial Sheet  Right now, I would have to finish up my 2D work (practice and final presentation) and the 3D work. The wood carving project had taken more time than I had anticipated, and it would be impossible to finish another wood maquette within the time frame so I would be changing the second 3D piece to something that can be made quicker such as air-drying clay. The 2D part would not take very long to finish, so I will continue focusing on the 3D project.

  In Week 7, we had a Student Talk session where we have discussed an element of our project (artist, techniques and such) in a group of 3 to 4 and feedback on each other. I decided to focus on Eric Carle and his relation to my work. Below is the presentation I have used during the talk. Link to Presentation And here is the link to the Feedback Sheet .  Unfortunately I have not gotten much comment, much less a substantial one so I cannot say much about it. However I have tried to give all the needed information during my talk.

  Eric Carle is a recently passed (2021) American children’s story illustrator, most well known for his ‘ The Very Hungry Caterpillar ’. Known for his unique transparent collage style it is said that he illustrated and published at least 70 children's story, many of which are still available today ( The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, n.d.) . Illustration from ‘ The Very Hungry Caterpillar ’  Carle’s stories invoke a feeling of childish wonder and dream-like experience, ‘ For author and illustrator Eric Carle, creating comfort, understanding, and familiarity were among the top motivators for his books .’ as Diamond (2016) describes. His common use of animal characters, meaning that he has an Aesop style stories, and art style only emphasises this experience more as the visuals and experience is something that cannot be seen in real life and only in imaginations, especially in a wild one like a child’s. This contrasts to Beatrix Potter’s, where despite the stories and c...

  Now that I have a working character design, I have now started planning for my 3D project: wood carved children’s toys. I began with a simple sketch of the toy version of the rabbit, I have chosen the rabbit as it is one of the predominant characters of the story. As my characters have focused on simplistic forms, being composed of simple geometric shapes, I have also utilised basic shapes in creations of my design. However before I finalised my design, I have decided to practice wood whittling and carving so that I would be able to adjust the design before doing the final figure.   I have practised wood whittling with pine block cubes that I have mentioned in the post ‘ Planning Primary and Secondary Research: Material Resourcing and Scaling pt. 1 ’, which were attached to different sizes of blocks.   While pine woods are not known to be best for carving due to their hard nature and knots in the wood fibres, I had not known when I had bought them. I did feel quit...

   As part of my 2D creation process, I have tested different paints and paper types to be used in my project. I have tried 4 different types of paints: watercolour, gouache, ink and acrylics on different types of paper, making use of similar colours to note if there are major differences between it.    Of the different types of paper, Khadi paper had the most interesting texture and it seems to make the colours more vibrant, so I will be using it for my final project. However for the paints, I feel split between watercolour and gouache. They both have the transparent texture that I want to use, and while gouache is more versatile due to its trait of being both opaque and transparent, I am more proficient in watercolour. As such, I may be using both in my final project.

  We had a Skills Week in Week 5, and I have decided to join the ‘Sclupting the Figure’ session for my project. While this session was focused on using wires and clay in building the figure, which is quite different from the wood carving/whittling project that I am working with, this practice would help me get a better grasp on 3D figures.   We began with using the wires, one thick one and the other thinner ones, to build the frame and proportion of the figure. This would be attached onto a wooden base, where the clay would be added. To avoid adding too much weight on to the frame, we added foil to build initial volume before building it up with clay.  After building the base figure, I added more flesh and the head. This process was more delicate as if there is too much weight, the figure may break apart.  After finishing the figure, I have left it to try in my studio space.  However when I checked in later on, the figure had several cracks running through ...

  The sea king is a character not as dominant as the rabbit and the turtle, however he is the driver of the story (the sea king is ill, and the only cure is the hare/rabbit’s liver). Therefore, while the character itself will not be as delved upon I will look at the design of the clothes during the Korean monarchy to design the king.  I first worked on the base of the king as, despite its minor appearance, it would still serve as the base of the clothing. I gave it a more humanoid look compared to the rabbit and the turtle to make it look like it has a ‘higher status’, like as if it has further evolved from its original animal status to more of a human one. And as it is a king, I wanted it to look more fancier compared to other characters so I utilised the shape of a lion fish, which has a very noticeable look. Photo of a lion fish by California Academy of Sciences  Then, I worked on the Korean design aspect that I would be using on the king and the turtle. This includes ...

  In today’s session, we discussed about creating a customer profile (target market for those who aren’t dealing with a specific client). I was quite sure of my target market from the beginning as I was creating a product directed to young children, so I started building the characteristics of my target market.  As I am creating children’s book (illustrations of it) and children’s toy (maquette of it), I will be targeting the parents of children who are aged between 3 to 6– the story I am using is targeted towards the younger ones– based in UK. They must be living in a stable economic situation, enough so that they have time to spare for their children and to be able to afford non-essential items (i.e. enough money to buy items outside of the most basic needs) including children’s books and toys. This would mean that the parents have been well educated to have a stable workplace (as they have a child or children and able to afford more items), being able to go into a well payi...

  Another main character present in this story is the turtle (sea turtle in technicality due to the setting being in an ocean, but most characterisations do follow more of a land turtle’s), who function as the communicator between the sea king and the rabbit due to it being the only animal to ‘travel through both the water and the land.  I wanted to put more focus on the sea turtle elements to my character, so I have simplified the shape of a sea turtle into two shapes: the teardrop shape which comprises the head and the limbs, and the ‘muffin’ shape which composed the body or the shell.  Photo of a sea turtle by NFWF   Then, as I have with the rabbit character, I analysed turtle characters from famous media. I have suspected that sea turtles would not be a common character since ocean-focused cartoons are very specific and rare, and my search had shown as such. Land turtles were more common to be used, with the rare exception of the sea turtle Crush from the movie ‘...

 To begin the concept illustrations for the story book, I began drawing concept art of the main characters. I have drawn some basic studies of different rabbit breeds simplified into basic shapes, the collage of different rabbits sourced from Animal Spot. The shape of the rabbit can be classified in four traits (four that I have identified) which are the ear [size/shape of the ear], the head [size and shape of the head], the body [tail or no tail, circular or oblong] and the legs [length]. These can be adjusted as needed to suit the personality of the rabbit. Types of Rabbit by Animal Spot  I continued on to study the shapes of famous rabbit characters known through different media. Their cartoon forms have differed according to the target market, such as the Miffy Rabbit being more simple and short as it is targeted towards younger audience while Bugs Bunny had more elongated shapes and exaggerated lines. One common theme however was that the shape of the face tended to be ci...