Sunday, January 15, 2012

The Impressionist exhibition of Musee d'Orsay

DREAMS & REALITY EXHIBITION 2011

National Museum of Singapore

14/01/2012

Group Photo outside the national museum! Well, we are about to enter the world of the impressionists! (: Sharon, Xin Yu, both Shu Hui(s), Tze She, Cai Wen and Grace(not in photo) decided that we will go to the impressionists' exhibition together on a nice Saturday morning! (:  

I wonder why the exhibition is titled "Dreams & Reality"... To me, the title suits a Surrealism exhibition as the surrealists explore dreams and the surreal world.


"Venus in Paphos" by Jean-Auguste Dominque INGRES. This painting is definitely not considered to be impressionistic, but it is one of the first few paintings that we see when we step into the museum. The figure portrayed is distorted--her back is too curved and her neck forms a strange angle with her left shoulder. According to the write-up, the body and the gaze of the woman "brings about a strange eroticism, somewhere between dream and reality" to this hybrid work. Well, she looks unnatural and her body seems tensed.

"The Birth of Venus" by Alexandre CABANEL.





Ah the time now is kind of late and I shall post more tomorrow!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Photos(:



I really love the sunset and I must thank nature for producing such wonderful colours. (:
THE ART IN NATURE.


I find this photo funny! (: My father looks grouchy as he was doing work. Well, the reflection in the mirror balances out the composition so you can see my father from different perspectives!


The 12 apostles! (: The tonal gradient in the sky is beautiful(: The beauty seems to reflect on the rocks as well. (:


Photos which kind of got me into AV. (: All taken in Australia in 2010. (: Australia is a beautiful place with loads of scenery and nice sunsets. (:

Well, here's another photo. From Sydney!

p.s. none are photoshopped! (:

Digital drawing


                                                                    GIRL
                                                                    2011
                                                           Paint Tool SAI

Yeah so this was done last year in an attempt to try out digital drawings. Kind of inspired by Kimberley and Yi Yuan's digital drawings so I decided to try. (:

Well, this was drawn using the markers tool in SAI. I am not sure if I used airbrush tool but I think I did.

I realised that digital drawing may not work for me as I can't stare at the computer for so long! >.< My eyes hurt and I am really lousy at controlling the bamboo tablet that my mum brought home for me from her office. The tablet is somewhat faulty as it is unresponsive, which further decreases my motivation to do art on the computer! Well, I cannot really get how the blending works on the computer...>.< I guess I am better off with traditional medium! However, I guess I should attempt digital again as there are pros to digital art--> YOU CAN UNDO whenever you make a mistake! (: It is not like watercolour where you can easily screw up the whole painting when you add too much water or add the wrong colour. ):

By the way, the girl looks creepy and ghostly. >.<

Math Revision Booklet Cover Design (:

Yay! (: This was done with Small Shu Hui and Tze She during the december holidays! Well, Mrs Ng asked if I want to design the math revision book cover before EOYs so I said ok, then I dragged two AEP friends with me! :D Well, 3 brains are always better than one!

Well, actually we did one for upper and lower secondary, ok, it was just one design created and we just changed the words from "upper" to "lower". HAHA :D

This was inspired by foolscap paper. Like a typical type of tabletop scene when you are gonna do math. You have a piece of foolscap paper in front of you and math instruments on your table.

Hmm, just went to talk to Mrs Ng just now and got some feedback about it. Well she said that it issomewhat too cluttered. I agree. There are a lot of things going on and I do not detect a focal point of the design. Maybe we should have added something big and striking as a main focus of the design? Well, maybe we could have altered the instruments' size to create contrast in size?

Well, but I think that we produced quite a decent design in a short span of a few hours, cos we spent the rest of the day talking about random stuff. (:

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

DREAMING :D My second oil painting

                                                                         
                                                                     DREAMING
                                                       
                                                  2011, during the December holidays

                                                                   Oil on Canvas

Yay yay so this is my second oil painting done in the art studio! (: I really like it! (: It gives off a really dreamy effect which makes the cardboard figure/robot look like it is hoping for something! I chose this picture as I thought that the sky is challenging to paint and I want to take up the challenge!

Well, this time, I came to the art studio prepared! I had my picture printed! So this was the original picture...I forgot where I found it online but Pang Xin says that it can be found on deviantart...




PERSONAL REVIEW: I really like the way I rendered the colours of the dreamy sky! (: I feel that the colours are somewhat well blended to give the sky a sense of ambiguity and somewhat an impressionistic feeling?! Well, sensei said that the sky reflected the robot's thoughts, like the robot has colourful thoughts but he is confused, so the sky is blurred. (: The colours of the sky are the main highlight of the painting to me! (: I think I brought out the hopeful feelings of the robot quite well with the sky! The colours of my painting seem to be brighter than the original picture and I like it! (: It was a challenge to paint the sky and I think I managed quite well! (: The blending was done quite greatly! I also think that the shades of purple of the window frame(is that what you call it?) that the robot is on are done pretty smoothly. There are varying shades by controlling the amount of blue and red in each type of purple! (: Well, I mixed different shades of red and blue to experiment with the combinations that blue and purple can make! I think that the experiment went quite well... I was also quite daring to apply light blue directly onto the canvas when I thought that the shade of the purple is a little too reddish! Well, if you look closely at the purple shades, the one of the purple shades contain a tinge of blue, like some blue strokes can be visible as it is mixed directly on the canvas. Well, oils are suitable for people who are daring, so never be afraid to experiment with oils even directly on your canvas! (:

However, after I posted the original picture on this blog post, I realised that the robot in my painting is elongated and tall! O.O Ah, proportion is wrong. >.< Should have corrected the proportion when I was doing the charcoal sketch! The stars in the sky are too big! It is like gigantic compared to the original picture and I feel that it may be a little bit overwhelming! O.O I feel that the painting lacks the "purple feel" that it has in the original picture. Maybe I should have painted a very very very light coat of violet after the whole thing dries completely? Hmm, but now my painting is hanging at home and I wouldn't want to bring it back to the art studio again. Shall just leave it like that. I also feel that the robot's colours are a little out of place. They are actually very far from the colours of the original picture's robot! I guessed that I could have observed the different colours better and mixed a better colour! The colour of the body seems really wrong as the shade is really different from the colours of the head. Or is it the head that has the wrong colour? Well, now the cardboard robot does not really look like a cardboard robot but "just a robot". It has lost the original cardboard feel plus the fact that I had forgotten to write the "amazon" word on the robot, it really does not look like it is made out of cardboard. But I think that the colours are not well-combined to produce a decent colour. Oh my, I just realised that the robot does not have a shadow! >.< I have to be more observant towards the things around me so that I can depict them properly through my art!

LEARNING POINTS: Well, I learnt how to paint things that give off a dreamy look! (: The sky was applied in lots of layers! Well, the base colour is not even painted using oils but acrylic! (: I added yellow and orange with a sponge in a really thin layer to cover up the entire painting. It really looks like a Fauvist painting at first, as the colours are all together and arbitary. Well, the good thing about acrylic is that it dries really really fast on canvas so I can start painting the oils after washing the sponge! :D The sky was painted in a few colours first as the bottom layer in "playful circular strokes" before blending in the white with my finger! This layering technique was suggested by sensei and I thought that it was really really good! At first, I was quite lost as I didn't know how to approach the sky, but just a simple suggestion can make a difference! (:

My First Ever Oil Painting :D


Roses

2011 December Holidays

Oil on Canvas

 
Last holidays, I thought that I should learn some new skills to enrich myself! So I decided to try out oil painting as I have never tried it before!
 The painting looked quite different from the original picture as it had been simplified(the original picture is complicated). Well, the table is slanted as in the original picture, the table is slanted too...

PERSONAL REVIEW: I was quite satisfied with the 2 roses that are facing the front. Well, it is painted in broad brushstrokes, almost like the impasto style! I did not mix the colours of these roses so I just applied curved brushstrokes of pink and white circular motion and let the colours just take its natural state(this sentence does not seem to make any sense >.<)! Well, I was quite surprised at the outcome of these 2 flowers! I just wanted to experiment with the brushstrokes as sensei saw me trying to paint the petals of the roses one by one and she told me that that was too tiring and that I should try different brushstrokes! I also like the shadows produced by the petals! The effect was quite natural.

However, there are some areas that I should improve on too! Some of other roses are shaped quite weirdly and distorted as I lost the outline drawings made by charcoal(well, sensei asked me to use a charcoal to draw on the canvas instead of using a pencil), so I kind of lost the shape of the roses. Conclusion, I painted the petals with my imagination as I was lazy to refer to the picture(the picture was quite tiny by the way). It was a bad choice I guess. >.< Should have observed the picture more carefully. There is also a lack of details in the leaves as I was rushing to complete this painting so that I can start on the second one.

LEARNING POINTS: Through the first painting, I had learnt a fair bit about oils. Well, they take like at least 3-4 days to dry, so it can be a pro or con depending on the situation. They can also be added in layers, after the bottom layers dry, so as to give the painting a sense of richness and wholeness. Well, I really appreciated that fact as on my first lesson, I still had some parts of the canvas unpainted with the base colour. Well, so since I had loads of pink paint left on my palette, sensei asked me to just colour all the places that are unpainted with the leftover pink paint!!!! I was like totally shocked! O.O It would look worse than a three year old kid painting if I did that, so I asked her why. Well, I do not really get her reasoning behind it but she said something like it will kind of emphasise the flowers when the painting is completed or something like that... Anyway, in the end, it turned out okay so I am very very relieved...(: Sensei also asked me to use a lot of colours for the background too. It looks like it is black but actually, it is a mixture of red,brown,dark blue, green...So I feel that the colour applied is quite rich as there are so many colours combined together! For the shading of the vase, sensei actually asked me to apply dark blue paint directly onto the light brown vase and when I applied it, due to the fact that the light brown paint is not dry yet, light brown +dark blue= dark brown! (: It is like mixing the paint directly on the canvas!  Oils are really nice to blend and the countless effects that you can create with oils are just simply amazing!!!!! (: For example, you can create really thick impasto which literally pops out very three dimensionally on your canvas!  There is an endless list of things that you can do with oils, just that you have to slowly discover the uniqueness of oils with experimentation! (:


I just thought that this painting can relate to Van Gogh's Sunflowers! (:


 


2011 Sec 3 AEP Block Test One Essay

                                          Section B: Structured Comparison Questions

                                            Lang Kacang by Bayu Utomo Radjikin, 1991
                                                       Mixed media 141 x 104 x 120 cm

                                         Second Beak Head by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt,1770-83
                                                        Alabaster 45 x 25 x 25 cm

a) Compare the ways these works suggest expression.
Lang Kacang and Second Beak Head are both very expressive sculptures as both the subject matter(which is the sculpture itself and the content) have their faces contorted in emotion. Both are showing their frustration and anger in their facial expressions. Their anguish, frustration and pain is conveyed to the viewers through their facial features.

For Lang Kacang, the sculpture's mouth is wide open and is giving out a roar of frustration and anger, with his head really thrown back and we can tell from the intensity of his roar, that he is really frustrated.

For Second Beak Head, the sculpture's mouth is closed and he is pouting. The intensity of his frustration and anger is not as intense as Lang Kacang as he is somewhat keeping his anguish inside himself, and not letting his emotions explode out by roaring, unlike Lang Kacang, whose emotions are revealed in the intensified roar, with his mouth wide open.

For Lang Kacang, even though his facial expression is contorted with pain and anguish, his torso stands stiff, rigid and somewhat emotionless, bounded by the bandages of metal which somewhat restricts movement as it is so stiff and solid. So through his body language, the viewers cannot really tell that he is angry unless they look at his face. So just by looking at his body, the emotions of anger and frustration are not conveyed. We can only experience the mood portrayed by the sculpture when we look at the face.

Whereas for the Second Bead Head,his emotions are not only shown in his face, but also in his neck. In his neck, the veins are protruding distinctively, which shows his immense frustration. His veins are popping out so much that we can sense that he is somewhat holding all his anger inside(since he is not roaring out his frustration) and his emotions are torturing him from the inside.

For Lang Kacang, the figure's whole body is portrayed. His legs are in an awkward position, which may suggest the intensity of his roar as his roar is so intensified that he seems to be losing his balance as he concentrates all his emotions into that powerful roar, letting all out. The inclusion of the legs also let us know that he is roaring so hard that it is hard to care about how he is standing. The whole sculture is also quite distorted.

For Second Beak Head, only the top part of his body, with the head and showing some of his chest, is shown in the sculpture. So we do not exactly get how the body is positioned, unlike Lang Kacang, where we can see the full body. We can only rely on what we see in the sculpture to deduce the mood the artist is trying to convey through his sculpture.

b) How do the artists differ in their treatment of the surface of their work in both sculptures?
Both Lang Kacang and Second Beak Head are three-dimensional sculptures. Both have smooth surfaces, but the Second Beak Head does not have the rough and uneven surfaces that are present in Lang Kacang.

In Lang Kacang, a variety of surface textures are present. For example, the head and the body have different textura;l surfaces. For the face, we get the impression that it has a rough and crude texture. Since there are many different objcts adorned on its head, a variety of texture in the different surfaces are created. For example, the crown base and the feathers may be smoother(as they are made of metal) compared to the rest of the headpiece, which seems to have a more 3-dimensional effect. The gems placed on the crown also suggests an unbalanced texture on the crown as a whole. Moving on to the body, the metal torso may be mostly smooth, however, with little protrusions here and there, it disrupts the whole harmony of the metal pieces being put together. The torso is actually quite hollow in the sense that the streaks of metaaal which combine to form the torso are not uniformly placed beside each other. Instead, they are curving in a non-uniform dierection, allowing the viewers to see through the hollow gaps that are not covered by the metal, so the surface is somewhat disrupted by these hollow gaps. The legs have a rough surface as suggested in the unbalanced texture of the surface. Moreover, Lang Kacang has a huge a variety of surface textures as different materials are used to put the sculpture together, so it does not have a uniform surface.

However, in Second Beak Head, the surface of the sculpture is smooth and uniform throughout, with no signs of roughness in the sculpture. The surface looks glossy and polished as light can be seen reflecting off its surface, and thus, reflecting the smoothness and glossiness of sculpture itself. Since there is only 1 material used in creating the sculpture, the surface is mainly uniform throughout, with the exception of minor cracks at the side of the sculpture. The surface is handled carefully by the sculptor. He deliberately and carefully carves the sculpture, showing the clear features of the sculpture. The sculpture is carefully carved as the sculptor takes care of every detail and makes sure that he carves the surfaces smoothly and gently. Therefore, a smooth uniform surface is created.

c) Which work do you think is more effective in its use of the materials for this subject?
I think that Lang Kacang has a more effective use of materials compared to Second Beak Head. Lang Kacang comprises of a wide range of materials ranging from metal to chains, strings etc. Wheras for Secong Beak Head, only one material is used - Alabaster.

The many materials used in Lang Kacang give the sculpture a more 3 dimensional feel to the sculpture. The different textures created by the different materials are effectively portraying the mood as there are more rough textures than smooth textures in the sculpture, contributing to the sense of anguish, emotion unstability and frustration that the sculpture is trying to portray. When someone is frustrated, it is a rough and intensified emotion, which can be effectively portrayed by rough textures. The different feel of the materials also contribute to the many emotions concentrated in the roar -- anger, frustration, thus heightening the intensity of the frustration portrayed by the sculpture.

For the Second Beak Head, it is made of only one type of material, which has a smooth,gliding texture. The material is not so effective in portraying anger but instead, it is more effective in portraying calmness. There is only one material used and it does not exemplify all the angry emotions that the sculpture is trying to show. Smoothness in the surface does not bring out the crude emotions contained in the sculpture.

So with more materials used in Lang Kacang, it is more effective to portray the mix of emotions of the sculpture.


Hehe, I thought that since I have time now...(well huge piles of work will come later in the year), so why not kind of "revise" sec 3 work by typing out my essay? (:

Monday, January 9, 2012

Visit to the Louvre!!!! (:

The Exhibition in the Louvre(:

2011

Well, I visited the Louvre with my family during the June holidays in 2011. It was a really eye-opening experience! It was like travelling back in time and reviving the Renaissance Period! The architecture of the Louvre is simply maginificent (it feels like a Renaissance building) and the Louvre is really really really HUGE!!!! O.O Well, it is quite impossible to finish walking the Louvre in one day as you will get really really tired after walking for a few hours and it feels like information overload(although we are just looking at paintings).


I like how the building gives off a very traditional castle-like impression. It is like telling us that inside this building, the works that are displayed belonged to the old masters!
It was not a weekend and yet there were so many people coming to visit it! On the weekends it will be like bombarded with more and more people!

This was taken when I was "inside" the Louvre pyramid. It is amazing how simple geometric shapes can be formed into a huge glass pyramid with the necessary engineering. To me, something beautiful can be as simple as this pyramid, it does not have to be detailed. It is actually one of the iconic architectural features of the Louvre!!!

SO WE WENT INTO THE GALLERY......

This was one of the first sculptures that I saw. The sculpture's muscles are carefully moulded into shape so as to portray a heroic figure like what most of the Renaissance masters try to do. A typical god-like representation of the human body during the Renaissance period.



THE WINGED VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE!!! I like the first picture (the back view). It looks like the sculpture is going to fly up to the sky and wind is blowing at it. (:

Christanity is a common subject matter depicted by Renaissance masters.

Cool architecture! I like the perspective of this picture! It looks like it is never ending! Well, the corridors in the Louvre are really LONG! O.O



THE LEGENDARY MONA LISA!!! (: (: (: (:
Ok, it was just a very very very small painting! Everyone was crowding around it and it was not really visible from a distance, so me and my sister squeezed squeezed squeezed our way through the crowd to take just a decent photo of it. Well, it has barricades around it with guards and all so no one can get really close to the painting. I think the nearest person to it is also around 1 metre away from the painting...


This is only like a small part of the gigantic wall which Mona Lisa was mounted on...The wall is so big that I think it can hold up like more than 100 Mona Lisa paintings...The rest of the wall is empty...so it is like small Mona Lisa on a big wall.

A really vicious and dramatic painting! The figures are posed in a dramatic way which brings out the heroic character of the figure at the top. Colours used are mainly warm which contributes to the heroism of this piece.

The colour scheme is warm and pure, conveying a sense of pureness and virtue in the painting. It seems saint-like, with the glowing light and the fair skin tones of the human figures. Are they gods?

War --> another common subject matter of Renaissance artists! I realised that a lot of red is being used in Renaissance paitings. Maybe it symbolises royalty?

I forgot the title of this piece, but it is the scence of Napoleon's crowning, if I am not wrong. I think we learnt this before in sec 1. This painting is GIGANTIC and it covered a massive space on the wall. I think it is at least 2 stories high! The size shows the important significance of Napoleon's crowning! The painting is so detailed! The fur on the people's clothes can even be seen! Light,realistic and smooth brushstrokes were used! I wonder how long it took the artist to paint the painting. O.O

                                        


                                            
(: I remember these paintings from sec 1! (:




Shall continue tomorrow.... (:





Wild Animal

Wild Animal.

2010

Clay and paint.



This was done for an AEP assignment given by Mrs Tan in Sec 2! (: I remembered that it was really fun doing this, and the end result was satisfying and not satisfying at the same time. I was quite surprised that this small sized sculpture turned out to be quite heavy!

I cannot find the prep work that I did before making this animal. ): It was inspired by quite a few things: mushroom, panda, giraffe,elephant, an octopus, a rabbit and a magic hat! Its body is supposed to be shaped like a mushroom. The main colour of its body(black and white) follows the colour of the panda's body. One of the mushroom like antenna at the top of his head(beside the hat) was inspired by a cartoon giraffe. It has elephant ears, octopus arms and rabbit feet! Yup, so it was quite a weird combination of different animals, but that was the point of the assignment -- to produce a wild and weird animal.

It was satisfying as I thought that I had made my wild animal look what I want it to look like --> cute and confused! Well, it looks really lost or surprised by something! Its eyes are like practically popping out and its mouth is open! I guess I was quite satisfied with my moudling of the forms so as to "put the expression on its face". It also had a fat and chubby look to add to its cuteness!

What I was not so satisfied about was the fact that I never added the paint which gives the surface a glossy and shiny texture(well, I forgot what was the material used to colour the animal called), so when the animal came out of the kilm, some parts were glossy and most parts were not! ): Mrs Tan said that the glossy wax will run off the surface of round parts easily and since most of my animal is round, it became quite a crazy mix of glossy parts and non-glossy parts...Some coloured parts also peeled off after I transported the animal home. I should have taken more time to slowly and carefully colour the animal, so that the colour and gloss will stay on the animal. I remembered that I kind of rushed to colour this, which I deeply regretted. Lesson learnt --> Be patient when you colour a clay figure!!!!!
                                                                   

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Our Sec 3 AEP SIA!

EXHIBITION AND ART ACTIVITY AT TTSH(:

 We are supposed to hold an exhibition and carry out an art activity at a public place. Well, it was supposed to be "ART FOR THE COMMUNITY". So we decided to have our exhibition and art activity at a hospital (after considering a few other places)!

In the end, we our proposal was accepted by Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) so we worked hard to make this whole thing a success! Well, even though it is not exactly a full art exhibition, I guess it is  still somewhat an art exhibition that should be documented! To me, this was a very meaningful art exhibition paired with an art activity as it was organised by us for the public(: And it was an art exhibition that was not in a museum haha. :D

For our art activity, we decided to teach the public how to fold paper origami(hearts and cranes) and we will ask them to write their well wishes for the patients on them. The origami will then be collected and passed to the patients after our activity.

So here are the photos:

So this was the starting of our art activity. When we had just set up the tables and laid out our stuff...
We're still practising how to fold the origami cranes and hearts! The woman in purple is Miss Michelle! She is the nice person who we contacted from TTSH! (: I think she is teaching Xin Yu how to fold tulips or something.

Haha, this is our activity poster! (: We finished it in the mac lab the day before our art activity! (: And that is Lee Shu Hui posing behind our poster hahaha! (: Our exhibition of kimonos is just behind(:

After we set up our booths, we were kind of shy at first but then people who passed by our booth got curious and approched us. (:




                                We have got "customers" from different age group and races! (:



We had collected quite a number of origami pieces like after 2 hours prior to the start of our activity!




Yay, so shortly after lunch, 201'09's math teacher Mrs Ng came! (: With her 2 daughters and 2 nephews(: Then the number of origami pieces tremendously increased! They folded loads of different types of origamis and even taught us how to fold flowers and others! Well, shortly after Mrs Ng arrived, Mr Robertson arrived with his wife! But we never took photos of them...O.O Sorry Mr Robertson!!! >.<

                                                Pretty flower that one of the kids folded! (:

Cute rabbit that one of the kids folded! (: (: I remembered that frogs were folded too! (: And one of Mrs Ng's nephews folded some person and his clothes!

                             The variety of origami significantly increased in the afternoon! (:

This girl stayed at our booth for like around 2 hours! (: She is one cheeky kid. XD Well, Mrs Ng's kids stayed for like practically the whole afternoon! (:


Yay, so our activity ended late in the afternoon! (: It has been a fruitful day which concluded with a box filled with origami paper cranes and hearts (and limited editions of animals and flowers and shapes!). This box was passed to Miss Michelle who will then help us pass the origami to the patients in the hospital. (:

Yup so planning this whole thing was really tiring but I'm glad that it turned out well! (: I hope that when the patients receive the origami, it will brighten that little bit of their day! Well, I guessed that we worked really hard prior to the commencement of our exhibition and activity! Haha, I remembered that 2 days before the setting up of our exhibition, Xin Yu and I literally camped overnight at Sharon's house to complete our kimonos! And Sharon's dog is a little scary, it kept staring at me when I was working on the kimono at 1am. O.O Anyway, special thanks to Mr Robertson, Miss Michelle from TTSH and especially my groupmates! (: I hope that this journey had been memorable for all 4 of you guys as it had been for me! (: Well, I am not going to copy and paste my AEP reflections from last year, but well, I guessed that teamwork is indeed important for this whole process as 5 brains work better than 1 ! (: And we need more than 1 person to set up the kimonos at TTSH! Oh and thanks to Sharon's dad for helping us with the transportation and set up! (:

Well, everything can't be put into one post...but still...(: If I were to embark on this project again, I guess that we could have worked better with more time management! Or else we have to camp at Sharon's house and get stared at by her dog. O.O