#keypieces

the trio, 2022

title cards, 2022

If there is one thing that I have noticed about myself during my time at my art foundation course is I go down the interactive route. When I was first planning out an idea for my concept project A Trip Down the Canal, I knew that I wanted to do a story but I felt like something was missing. Yes, it’s fine to have a trail that people can walk down and look at pictures and read text. Sure, that’s fine. But I wanted to add more. So, if you wanted to read the story, you needed to scan a QR code that would be on the pictures that could be found along the trail, and to add even more, there was an animation projected on to the wall of one of my characters, who would only be available at certain times of the day and she would wave at the people passing by.

So, when I started brainstorming for this, I again decided that the interactive route would be the best option — at the time of planning I was also starting my last project of my course which is also interactive so it just made sense to me. I thought it would be fun to have a poster and a billboard instead of just the one. But instead of making both striking, leading to them overshadowing each other, I wanted to make the poster more of like a taster for what the billboard presents. Think of it as an invite.

The poster would be simple, with a nice colour that catches people’s attention. Let’s say that the billboard is in the centre of a city, the posters would be spread around all over the city. On these posters, there would be a simple graphic of my character and my chicken persona and a QR code with the words SCAN ME PLEASE. When one scans the code, they will be taken to a page which shows up like an invitation. On this invitation, there will be a link to an app to download and a location so people can actually find the billboard.

After people have gotten the app and found the location of the billboard, this is where the fun starts. The billboard will be more like the billboards you find in Piccadilly Circus or the Shibuya Crossing. At first all there will be is the same characters that are on the poster but this time, they all occasionally blink or yawn — the chicken will fall asleep for a few seconds sometimes. Using the app that is downloaded, it will connect you to the billboard. The billboard will be split up into sections, and each person who connects will get their own section — it is their canvas. They are now free to do whatever they can, they can write something or draw something, provided it isn’t inappropriate or offensive. There will be a filtering system ion place to make sure nothing offensive will appear on the billboard and ruin it for everyone. Furthermore if someone wanted to self promote, that would only be allowed if there is something to accompany the handle, like a drawing. The app with display your square with a paint and text option with a colour wheel so the billboard can become nice and colourful. There will also be different sizes of the brushes available. The app is also available for tablets, so if someone wanted t o use a stylus for drawing that would also be fine.

^ close up of what the app would look like

Let’s say you’ve drawn a picture of a cat. After you’ve submitted your picture and it has been approved it will appear on the billboard. The time for approval depends on how many submissions there are. When submitted and approved, it will appear for up to an hours before disappearing so that the next picture can be approved. Let’s imagine that this was a big success and there are loads of submissions, the original characters on the billboard with eventually be wiped away. Every time that there is a new square been taken up by a new piece of art, the characters will look at it to add to that interactive element — your art is being acknowledged and appreciated. But, eventually the whole board will be covered and I thought it would be sweet for when the characters are about to be fully covered, they would wave goodbye.

^ original draft

^ the canvas is 19008 x 8640px, about the same as a normal LED billboard

When I first came up with this idea, I was going to make it more of a billboard that one could actually physically destroy. The idea was that you flip a coin and then if you get heads, you have to add something to the billboard and if you get tails you have to take something away. That is a fun idea, but it would be too much freedom — it would be difficult to regulate since people might be tempted to draw in two sections instead of one and people might draw something offensive and that would just ruin the fun for everyone involved. Also, logically thinking, a billboard can be quite difficult to get up to and putting a ladder there would not be safe so honestly, it was good that I abandoned this version of the billboard. So, the electronic billboard route made way more sense. It would technically be easier to moderate what gets put up on it and it would be safer since it would not include climbing a ladder.

Now, what is the purpose? That is a great question. If I had to say what the message is that I am trying to bring across is that anyone can draw - anyone can make art. I have two older siblings who are also artists and naturally I always felt as aspect of competition. But as I got older I realised that I did not need to be on the same level as my siblings to also be an artist and that feeling of realisation was something I don't think I will ever forget. The same thing happened recently as well in my art foundation course - we had just finished a project and my friend got a lower grade than me. Immediately she started debating what she did wrong and was asking me about what I did differently. I told her what I did but I also said "but I did an interactive trail while you did a dress. You can't really compare our work together,". After I had said that I saw on her face that it clicked in her brain. Why was she comparing a piece of textile art to and interactive animation trail? It's like comparing oil and water - both are liquid but you can't compare them, you would never drink oil when you are thirsty.

A trip down the Canal: our protagonist with their friend (?)

pencil sketch with biro turned digital versions

2022

This is the main character for my upcoming project "A trip down the Canal" which is plan for an interactive trail down by the river Don in Sheffield. The trail depicts the story of our protagonist who finds a strange creature down by a stream and wants to bring them back home. The protagonist does not have a name since they are meant to be replaced by the people walking down the trail. This also contributes to the gender neutral design of the protagonist. I wanted everyone to be able to feel included in this story.

They carry their new friend (?) around in their bag and goes down to the canal which was notorious to be home to terrible river creatures. The entrance is plastered with warning posters (these would be there physically) telling our protagonist to turn back but they keep going.

The trail would contain multiple board with drawings and QR codes which people would have to scan on their phones to find out more of the story. There would also be an animation projected under the bridge, introducing another character - the one from the warning poster, who offers to help our protagonist on their quest to bring their friend home.

I wanted the story to be left on a cliffhanger - is it a happy ending or is it a sad ending? That is for the people who have walked the trail to decide

It took me some time to get started with this project, mostly because I didn’t know where I wanted to go with this. And, naturally, I did was every person who tries to run away from responsibilities does - I procrastinated. I just started binging YouTube. I already watch a lot of YouTube and Twitch but when there’s a task that I don’t know how to do, those hours watching just increase by a significant amount.

This might sound bad. You’re wasting your time! You’re being unproductive! Yes, that is correct, in the usual sense. But I had actually just triggered something in my brain that would actually influence this whole project. An important thing to note is I love video games. I love playing them and I love watching people online play them as well (mostly because I can’t run the games I want to play on my computer so I’ll just settle to watch someone else playing them).

The point is, at the start of this project, I was procrastinating and decided to watch a three hour and a half, full playthrough of the horror game Bendy and the Ink Machine (2017). I didn’t know anything about the game and I had only seen the mascot, Bendy, online a few times. But I really didn’t want to my project. So I started watching my nearly four hour long video.

Funnily enough, Bendy and the Ink Machine takes place in an old animation studio and the protagonist is an animator who works there. I want to make my own animations some day, so I thought this was great. I found a game which main theme is linked to what I want to do - this counts as homework, right?

Something that I find very interesting and I only noticed it recently is that you can see when Bendy and Ink Machine started influencing my style and now I created characters. I had dabbled in the cartoon genre of the 1920s, especially when the hit game Cuphead was released in 2017. I always liked the look of the rubber hose animation style:

But, when I was browsing through my digital art folder, filled with endless files of half finished drawings with the riveting title of Untitled, I could see a visible change in style. Before, I would like to say my style was influenced by anime and manga but it probably wasn’t. I spent a whole year looking at art in anime, manga and online artists so I am probably influenced by a big mash up of everything combined.

I would love to say that I was inspired by the great artists of the world, like Picasso or Da Vinci, but that would just be a lie. But I am viewing this as a positive thing. After I noticed my style change, I began actively looking for artists who also use this style or at least something like it. And I was fortunate to find many I am very interested in - Kaws, Takashi Murakami, Joyce Pensato. I would like to do a special mention for Kristen Liu-Wong, Kenny Scharf and Raymond Pettibon because I found their work as well while researching and I like their work a lot as well. Isn’t it funny how one YouTube video of a game can start this domino effect of finding greater things.

I liked the idea of using plants to make character designs. So, this is what I ended up coming up with:

Venus, the venus flytrap

For Venus, I wanted to add the beauty that a venus flytrap is. She’s is plant royalty with a pretty innocent look. I needed to incorporate the teeth/spikes of the venus flytrap, so I used her crown to show that.

Sebastian, the succulent

For Sebastian, I wanted to add the round features of the succulent into his design so I made him wear shoulder pad/armour. One thing that I was certain on when thinking of a design for this succulent, is that I wanted him to have curly hair. I don’t know why, every other hair just didn’t seem to suit the character.

Both colour pallets are based on the actual plant. I used the eyedropper tool the select the colours I wanted.

self portrait saga: three day process

pencil sketches

2021

What I think is so interesting about these three pieces is that they were made a day after each other. After I had finished the final third piece and I took some time to look back on the past two drawings, I became fascinated with how quickly things change. I had the same concept for three days and I only made a few small changes and the effect changed almost instantly.

the new lipstick trend

face paint mixed to create the same shade as a greenscreen

2020

What I think is funny about this piece, is that I was not actually making it for my art course. I was making it for my kpop stan twitter account to promote the new song of my favourite kpop group. It was a trend at the time to make a creative way to promote their new song and this was my contribution.

Made using Adobe premier pro

artist response, but make it minecraft

recreations of pieces found in exhibition reacted in minecraft

2021

We were given the task to visit an exhibition that speaks to us. I had found an exhibition in a local gallery showing the works of Mark Firth, an artist who incorporates his love of art and engineering together. The sculptures are made of aluminium

I have always been a bigger fan of shapes with more angles than shapes with less (maybe this is caused by the nightmares of trying to figure out the circumference of a circle, but I digress). I really enjoyed looking at this exhibition and wanted to create a response that would be able to capture the lovely shape of these sculptures. Minecraft is a game created solely out of cubes - cubes have perfect angles, I knew what I had to do.

The first one I recreated was the nine cube piece. I tried to stick as close to the source of what this sculpture was made of. Unfortunately, Minecraft does not have aluminium blocks, so I chose something that looked close enough which is iron. For the inside of the cubes, I used the new copper block. Funnily enough, I used the wrong copper block, so if I was to reboot this world, I can guarantee that the copper block have oxidised and turned green.

For the second piece, I wanted to mix it up a bit more. I could have just stuck to making it out of iron again, but I wanted to add a bit of spice. And one important thing about Minecraft is the multiple worlds within the game: the Overworld, the Nether and the End. So I incorporated these three worlds into this piece to give it some more character: I added important elements from all worlds into the piece, for example, the villager house in the Overworld, the lava and fire from the Nether and the Dragon egg which you can get by “freeing the End” and the end of the game.