02/10/2020 - 16/10/2020 (Week 6 - Week 8)
Naim Zuki, (0346615)
| Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Design Principles
Project 1
LECTURE
Lecture 6 | Self-Portrait
For our first Design Principles project of the semester, we
are to study the art of Self-Portraits from its historical values to how
design principles can be applied in contemporary self-portraiture. The goal
of this project is for us to be able to successfully apply the design
principles learned throughout the semester and gain create awareness on how
materials and composition are critical for our communication.
Our next task is to create a self-portrait that reflects our life experiences, culture, family, friends, school, hangouts,
or any of the sorts. We're given the freedom to use any medium for this project.
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INSTRUCTIONS
Module Information Booklet
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PROJECT 1 | SELF PORTRAIT
Going through the work I've done for the module's exercises, it's apparent that I'm more drawn towards abstract work of art and design. I don't see a
point in trying to achieve a sense of photographic realism when photography exists. The very creation of the first camera in 1816 has made realism in fine arts arguably futile. Artists for the past century have realised this and made movements to move past the need for realism art; from the impressionist movement that began in 1860 to the expressionist movement in 1912. Some good
examples of influential artists who are involved in these movements are Edvard
Munch, Franz Marc, Egon Schiele and my personal favourite (who is more contemporary), Zdzisław Beksiński. The haunting feeling that lies behind these designs and the emotions they evoke that seem to tower any other form of self-portraiture is the direction I hope to achieve in this project.
IDEA EXPLORATION
Fig. 1.0, Inspo, (Images Courtesies of Jason Thielke, Mary M, Carlos
Gracia, NIOCCHIN, Marina González Eme)
When talking about how I view myself personally, I tend to give varying answers every time. Regardless of who and when a person asks me this question, I've always struggled with giving a definite answer. I've only
realised this behaviour around July when the topic slipped past my mouth and
I ended up spending the next hour discussing with a friend about how I
visually view myself. Only then did I end up doing a bit of research into
facial dysmorphia and personality disorders, which lead to me realising
I might exhibit some behaviours that could be derived from those conditions.
Even though I think it's far fetched that I've developed such conditions,
it's quite apparent that during depressive episodes I tend to spend an
extended amount of time staring at my face, be it through my bathroom mirror
or through my phone's camera, studying every single feature but ending up not
remembering any of them. During these episodes, I'm always convinced that
the person who is looking back at me is not real because it doesn't fit the
mental image I have of myself. Which is paradoxical, because if I cannot
visually remember my facial features, how can I have my own mental image?
I couldn't quite explain how it feels to live with these feelings, so I want to design something that reflects this. My choice of medium is acrylic. To get a proper colour blending, the technique that I've applied most in this project is the wet on dry technique.
SKETCHES
Since this project is more about how I visually and emotionally interpret myself, I imagine the Eyes would be the most significant part of the entire composition. So I started by practising painting some eyes.
Fig. 1.01, Eye Practise, 18/10/2020
Fig. 1.02, Eye Practise, 18/10/2020
Feeling satisfied with the style of the paintings, I went on to do a small
study on the nose and lips.
Fig. 1.03, Nose and Lip Practise, 18/10/2020
Fig. 1.04, if you take a look at it from this angle, it looks like a face
with rearranged features, which I thought was pretty cool,
18/10/20202
At this point, I felt satisfied enough with the style and decided to
begin sketching my idea for this project.
Fig. 1.05, sketching progress, 18/10/2020
DEVELOPMENT
To reflect the idea of facial dysmorphia in the form of a multifaceted
personality, this persona possesses multiple eyes with varying
characteristics that mirror how I tend to not have a singular view on my own
appearance visually or emotionally.
Bringing in Design Principles, I've incorporated symmetry in the
facial structure of this persona, contrast between the characteristics of
the individual eyes, repetition with the placement of the eyes, and balance
with the colours of the composition.
Fig. 1.06, Painting Process, 18/10/2020
Fig. 1.07, Final Progress; Multifaceted, 18/10/2020
After finishing this painting I had mixed feelings about the end result. I
can confidently say that I'm not proud of it. It feels unsatisfactory and it just overall felt as if it wasn't enough as a final submission. I can't quite explain it but something wasn't right.
So amidst the disappointment, I've decided to come up with another design. I approached this part with a more straight-forward idea of addressing loneliness and isolation. Instead of approaching a face-focused
composition, I tried my hand at body poses. I tried doing the study from my own poses from the mirror and sketched out the pose. Though as I was sketching out the pose, I realised that I've been using female references way too much and I couldn't create accurate anatomy of the male body. But
I thought "why not?" and carried on regardless.
Fig. 1.08, Sketches, 18/10/2020
Loneliness and isolation are something I often experience as intense emotions a few times in a year. It only lasts about a month at best and I always find myself feeling light as a feather at the end of it, but this year's experiences were longer than before. In that way, it could be the worst I've experienced. Explaining what triggered it is a bit too personal for this project so I'll avoid that, but I can explain a constant feeling I have when going through these episodes. That feeling is a feeling of yearning. A yearning for something to happen, a story to tell, a memory to relish, something that would reawaken that spirit of wonder and excitement I had as a small child.
Though even if I spend hours walking through cities, calling up old friends, and spend days taking hundreds of pictures, most of the time I still sleep with the same feeling of emptiness inside. That stark contrast of feeling enlightened by the exploration but still feeling empty and melancholic inside is what I wish to communicate through this design: A figure sitting in defeat covered in the colours of bright yellow and gloomy grey is how I often feel when I wake up in the morning during these episodes.
Fig. 1.09, Final Painting, 18/10/2020
Fig. 1.10, Self-Portrait First Idea; 18/10/2020
Rationale
When talking about how I view myself personally, I tend to give varying answers every time. Regardless of who and when a person asks me this question, I've always struggled with giving a definite answer. I've only realised this behaviour around July when the topic slipped past my mouth and I ended up spending the next hour discussing with a friend about how I visually view myself. Only then did I end up doing a bit of research into facial dysmorphia and personality disorders, which lead to me realising I might exhibit some behaviours that could be derived from those conditions.
Even though I think it's far fetched that I've developed such conditions, it's quite apparent that during depressive episodes I tend to spend an extended amount of time staring at my face, be it through my bathroom mirror or through my phone's camera, studying every single feature but ending up not remembering any of them. During these episodes, I'm always convinced that the person who is looking back at me is not real because it doesn't fit the mental image I have of myself. Which is paradoxical, because if I cannot visually remember my facial features, how can I have my own mental image?
I couldn't quite explain how it feels to live with these feelings, so I want to design something that reflects this.
Fig. 1.11, Self-Portrait Second Idea, 18/10/2020
Rationale
Loneliness and isolation are something I often experience as intense emotions a few times in a year. It only lasts about a month at best and I always find myself feeling light as a feather at the end of it, but this year's experiences were longer than before. In that way, it could be the worst I've experienced. Explaining what triggered it is a bit too personal for this project so I'll avoid that, but I can explain a constant feeling I have when going through these episodes. That feeling is a feeling of yearning. A yearning for something to happen, a story to tell, a memory to relish, something that would reawaken that spirit of wonder and excitement I had as a small child.
Though even if I spend hours walking through cities, calling up old friends, and spend days taking hundreds of pictures, most of the time I still sleep with the same feeling of emptiness inside. That stark contrast of feeling enlightened by the exploration but still feeling empty and melancholic inside is what I wish to communicate through this design: A figure sitting in defeat covered in the colours of bright yellow and gloomy grey is how I often feel when I wake up in the morning during these episodes.
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FEEDBACK
Week 6
This week I present my ideas to Ms Maria with the mood board that I created during the idea development phase (refer to Fig. 1.0). She said that the choice of styles are acceptable but made sure to emphasize that I implement design principles in my final submission so it adheres to the requirement of the project.
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REFLECTIONS
Experience
Starting this project, I felt pretty happy that I'm able to use acrylic more confidently than during the exercises. However, I still had a hard time trying to piece together proper facial anatomy so I wasn't too happy with the first Self-Portrait. Towards the end, I didn't know which one I should submit as my final submission because I felt like both is lacking in some way. The first self-portrait is more personal, had a deeper meaning, and way more original. Even staring at that painting made me feel scared cause it has that haunting look. But the second one is cleaner and can be easily understood. Although I ended up submitting the second portrait as my final submission, the first painting is the one I favour most.
Observation
I noticed that I'm more drawn towards abstract portraits because I don't have a mental image of myself. These abstract painting styles speaks to me to an emotional level. Doing this project definitely made me appreciate the process and meaning behind abstract design more than before. Though I learned that the cost of making abstract art is the loss of communication between the artist and the audience. I still have a lot more to learn when it comes to creating better communication between my designs and my audience.
Findings
My style of design leans more towards applying techniques from fine arts. I get satisfaction from putting in the extra effort of experimenting with colour values, brush strokes, and playing around with different mediums. Although, I think I would have to branch out and practise making more contemporary designs to increase my likeliness of employability in the future.
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