work at home #5 - Cosplay

-The practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, esp. one from the Japanese genres of manga or animeTo me, it is a form of performance art ( like theatre and photography). It contains the many elements of art, from photography to costume design and make up. It creates many possibilities where we can bring it from just a hobby to a national level in competitions. There is no limits to anything from age to sex to even the country you are in.Some videos of winning cosplays from WSC ( world cosplay competition) The gundam ones are amaming::Zeld ( a game) 

Well you may say that their acting is not all that good, but everything on stage: the costume, the props are all handmade by them. That is one of the rules of WSC, where eveything have to be handmade and they have to provide evidence of that through picture before they qualify for the competition. This group is from Italy and as you can see ,this "dress up game" as many see cosplay as, is not only for girls but for guys too!! Even though they might not speak japanese at all, it is a must to use japanese during the competition and i think cosplay is a platform to bring people of different cultures together just like how some art does.

This costume was one of the best i've see. Usually these Gundam costumes are very popular in cosplay competitions ( they are really hand made by these cosplayers) because its huge, hard to make and usually wins many of the judge's hearts. It also takes a lot of time just to wear it and the discomfort it gives the person inside is just unimaginable!! And I love the ending the most, where they even created a doll inside of the costume!!~~ 

This is from the anime/manga Death Note.

commenting on the construction of the props and costume. IT IS SO AMAZING. I mean to create something that looks like its floating above your head is so hard and they made a death god float above theirs ( the character is a death god it basically floats around with the main character)

They installed light and wings into the prop which is already amazing for being able to balance on the shoulders. 

Then the creativity of the book, where the words just appear ( although its obvious that some one was spray painting behind it) . I really like how the whole skit shows some of the main characteristics of the manga but at the same time also wow the audience.

And of course since i love cosplay so much... there must be a reason.... because i cosplay too!!!!! ( actually a few of us in class does it! )

This is one of the most recent project. We went to source for locations to do the photoshoot ( this is a church) and we even invited some of our photographer friends to help us. In this picture, the costumes are half original half referenced from the original art. 

we were able to come up with our own costume design using the basic design of these  two character, for characters in the same series. 

Who is this????? Yessss its Hsi Chien in blue hair!!! 

I really love the composition of this picture because there is both a sense of space and depth. The lighting in the corridor ( actually we sneaked into the emergency exit) gave a very professional look to our photo ( this was taken somewhere near the even hall of the cosplay convention) and the balance in the composition also makes the photo look pleasing. The color of the walls amazingly complemented our costumes very well as our costumes are made of soft colors and the walls together with the lights complemented the soft color well. 

This was from very long ago! And the other cosplayer is a friend i made at the event. In this picture there is also the balance in composition where the background of the event area which we choose also complemented the picture. ( some people do not choose their background carefully and they end up with crowds of people standing behind them or their pictures are taken against the roads.. which.. well does not look as nice) 

This is another one of the photos taken at a photoshoot and once again, we choose a balanced composition. The two pillars were used as frames for the picture, allowing the viewer to focus on the  subject matter in the middle. And as for this cosplay, I like the costume the most as the costume has intricate designs and the designs for each character just complement each other so well. And the colours of the different characters coming together gives a vibrant feel to the picture. 

The one ontop was taken at the event hall and the lighting was not good. So the effect did not come out as well as we hoped for. ( especially the wigs. when flash is used, the wigs usually reflects light and it comes out ugly in pictures. So that has to be taken note of) ( and look at the girl in the corner in pink! guess whoooo) 

Here is a ' behind the scenes' photo~ ( the one in green is one of our ex ny girl!) the black cloth is acually a 1m train connecting to the back of her dress and from this you can see how hard it is sometimes for us to walk around. We had to carry that for her as we go around~ 

This was during some past year Fun Fair in school where we used our cosplays to attract attention to get people to visit our stall. See some familiar faces there?

And finally here another one of the shots during a photoshoot with our photographer!!!

Overall, i think cosplay is something for everyone and if you look deeper into the surface, it has many elements of art in it. Many things has to be taken into consideration and if everything comes together well, i would call that a perfect cosplay! <3 

Im sure that i will continue with this hobbie with my friends and we will strive towards bigger projects!

I would really love to attempt creating a cosplay that has many props in it as i think thats what makes it fun. It is the making and preparation of the whole thing that is fun. After the current ongoing project is done, i would like to challenge myself to make more props! 

Before i end, here are some props i've done before~

A vending machine! (dont ask me why) 

It was not really sucessful because it didnot have a stable structure... D;

A dog soft toy ( a pet of the character) 

 O i used BJD glass eyes for its eyes and as for the teeth, i shaped some fake nails to look like teeth and glued them on! <3

and well, i've also done a few smaller ones! <3 

good bye

Works at home #4 - Cosplay costume

Cosplay costume!

This is currently a ongoing project with Svena and some other friends. We are making this costume based on the illustration design by Sakizou Illustration, the romantic jewels series. We really love the design and decided to cosplay it. It is the opal series where there is a design for a male and a female character. We challenged ourselves and created another two designs for another pair of male and female characters based on this two outfits.


To me, cosplay is like a form of performance art. It is just like some who like to re-produce some old master's artwork or even use the old master's art work as a kind of 'base' and use the same technique, color, composition or subject matter to create their piece of art. For costumes, i think they are good under two conditions.
1: it is highly accurate and it is very skillfully made and the person is also able to pull it off, fitting into the character very nicely. So basically its high accuracy and believable.
2: It it original or that it is another depiction of the character and the costume is aesthetically pleasing and attractive.
so for this costume, i am going for the second one because we are unable to source for very accurate images and also full images. Hence we take in other cosplayer's designs and edit it further and add in our own depiction of it.

The designs by the original artist is based on these jewels and we choose opal, as it is this special stone that does not give a fixed color but reflects light of many different colors depending on their types. Opal is the one in the last row second from the left.

This is the male version for the Emerald design and we used this as reference because we were unable to find the design for the gentleman representing opal. We figured we could use the lace pattern, the cutting like the puffy sleeves and even the color as reference. The high collar and the ribbon are also points which we would consider including.



For this picture, it is from a different series but it closely show similarities to the romantic jewel opal series. Both have the  coral blue ribbons and the lace that is present in almost all of her character designs. The main piece's cutting is also very similar the opal design where it consists of this corset like center piece with a short skirt ( for our costume we will be doing shorts as we thing its a little too revealing) and there is also puff ups on the sides and on the back. Both have a neck piece which we will design it to create may be an original design.

                    

This is another two illustrations from the Afternoon Tea Time series where this designs's color scheme is also   coral blue with cream white the center piece is also a tight fitting piece and it also have this puff at the bottom.  while the other one has the same base cutting design.  And the design of the shoe will also be used as reference for ours.

This design have the most similarity to the opal design. The center piece is very similar together with the color and the stripped coral blue ribbon.
Then we narrow down on the similarity and came to a conclusion: all of the characters have white or cream white hair, like the base color of their clothes. They also have coral blue colors where lace is a must have. Some of the designs also have some green ribbons present and the bottoms are mostly short, and the characters wears high stockings. They usually wear long sleeves or gloves that are not attached to the center piece. all of them wears this choker that has a jewel in the middle ( for us we will source for ones that looks like opal) Finally, There are many tiny details which would be added on too, which are usually bronze or gold.

And then we found very nice photos of cosplays of the character ( we only found those by this cosplayer from japan)

For the female character, the cosplayer uses a cream base with puffy sleeves attached to a white glove then at the hip, there is a hat like piece added on covered with green cloth and peachy cream white lace. Then there is also the coral blue ribbons un the costume.

For this picture, we can see a clear view of the front piece, almost a full body picture.

Here we can have a very clear view of the designs on the hat and the materials used like the green lace and the peachy white lace on both the hat and the neck/chest piece.

Over on this picture, we are able to get a reference picture of the male costume design and also color reference







very clear view for both character and this is the main image we base our designs on, mostly following the costumes of these two characters with some changes to the costumes like the shorts for the girl and also the back of the costumes which we can't see.



Here is basically the base of our costume and the progress of what we have done. There is the main piece for the girl and under it, is the lace that we've went to source for on arab street.

We choose to use a stretchy white material , because we are still very inexperienced in making costumes ( this is our first).  Hence incase it does not fit in some area, the stretchy material can make up for that. And it is a kind of cloth with fury texture which we think will look nice in photos as it does no reflect light too much. We made the top using patterns from magazines and books and added a zip on the back. Then we made the pants separately, adding some elastic to the bottom so that the pants would look a little puffy and also fits her legs well. For the lines visible due to the sewing, we plan to cover that up with lace and accessories to make it look better. And this will be where we change part of the original design.


As for the hat-like piece on the hip, we bought a big sun hat and cut it to size, and added some wire into it so that it can be shaped into place. Then we covered it with the green cloth and sewed it on together with some lace. For this we hand sewed it as it was not possible to sew it using a sewing machine.

This piece is still in progress as it requires a lot of time and i also need the person wearing it to be present as i do not know how to make the costumes to measurements given, so i have to fit it on the person and pin the cloth to them and mark out the areas to sew before sewing.

This project thought me how to choose cloth to create different looks like softer ones or stiffer ones, ones with a shinier surface and those with matt surface. There are also different techniques that i learnt like how to make different kinds of sleeves, and ways to create different patterns. The puffy pants was modified from a plain pattern for normal pants and the top was also made without a pattern. I've also 'forced' myself to learn how to use the sewing machine, where different kinds of sewing method for different purposes. 

This is a very interesting experience where i tried costume design and making, combining it with one of my hobbies which i really enjoy. If this costume is successful, i plan to make my future costumes instead of buying them as i find that i feel more accomplished if i make my props and costumes myself and is proud to wear it out during events. 

Works at home #3 - painting on water

Painting on water!!

 

I was inpired to do this work after I saw a kind of nail art called Marble Nail art. It is baisically placing drops of nailpolish onto water, creating a pattern. Then they would stick their finger into the center of the pattern, into the water, and the pattern would stay on their fingers. Here's a videoooo~~~ :

 

it creates beautiful patterns on the surface of the water, and it comes out beautifully on the nails too~~

But this lead me to another kind of  art!! And this is LATTE ARTT!! this kind of  "art" requires lots of skill and practice and i really enjoy watching videos on it. Here are some of my favourites~

Impressive huh! and now we see how they do some of the simple designs~~

This is alittle different from the marble nail art as it is only made up of two very neutral colours unlike the vibrant colours of the marble nail art. However i love the both of them.

the marble nail art is creative and the images can be taken out of the water while the latte art requires skill, creates amazing results.

i noticed one thing in common was that they use sticks to swirl around, creating beautiful patterns and i was wondering if i can bring that to a higher level and this is when i came across this: enjoy!!

I was curious, so i searched for " painting on water" and i was amazed by what it creates and without knowing the name of this form of art, it took me quite alot of work to find out what it is called. And this beautiful art technique is called Ebru!

This is a Turkish art and it baisically involves paint on water and after the pattern is completed, it is lifted off using a piece of water.

I do not have the special equiptment and paint that these painter has, so i used my sink and some paint ( i used Mr Hobby's Mr Color paint

I use this for my BJD's face up ( it is just like painting the facial features/ doing makeup for the doll e.g eyeliner, blush, lips etc)

I figured that this would work better that water soluable paint as the paint will not just dissolve every where and just stay on the surface where it would be picked up by the paper.

And in addition, i also tried nailpolish but instead of using the nail, i used paper to pick up the pattern.

First off is this:

This is the first on i did, using nailpolish. Due to the limited color i have, i used only green and yellow. and i think due to the quality difference interms of the nailpolish, it dried and hardened very fast on the surface which did not allow me to have many layers. and it spreads out and thin out too fast, much faster than the ones in the videos i've seen. But i would rate it quite sucessful for a first try as it came out quite nicely with an interesting pattern.

Then i went on to experiment with the Mr Color paint:

 

IT CAME OUT SO BEAUTIFULLYYYYY

For this paint, it did not limit it self to only layers, but is also able to create these thin whisps of color that looks very beautiful on paper. this looks like an image of ink dripping into water. however, i think this one is not as sucessul as the colors are not spread out and too concentrated in a corner.

But.........

I could'nt "unsee" the fact that it really looks like a person with thick long hair coming down from the corner of the paper. so i took a pen and lined it. I though it was not a bad idea so i did more of it and drew on them like this:

This is like a face of a person blowing out a bubble (maybe) or the yellow one can be a speech bubble. I think it looks very nice this way too. It i a twist to this art technique, where drawing is also applied to it~

Seeing that many of my works, the colours are all too concentrated in one corner, i decided to copy what the artists in the videos do, splatter the paint around.

From my research, placing some soap into the water would help the paint better adhere to the paper so i added some shampoo ( i know its weird but it was the most convinient thing near the sink) . And then the shampoo created sooo much bubbles on the surface of the water. i tried to scoop them up to remove them but i thought: what kind of patterns would be created if there are bubbles to create more texture? so i left the foam in the sink and took the paints and started splattering. First the white, then the red and finally the black. But to my dismay, the colors were in tiny balls on its own and that's when i realized that the paint had some oil in it and so it will not spread out like how the nail polish does.

Then it struck me. I've see the same techinque of using the stick/ skewer to swirl the colors around in all three different kinds of art and i went ahead and took the back of my paintbrush and swirlled the colors around. However, due to the thick layer of foam on the surface, i was unable to see the pattern made and decided to go on and place the paper on. To my surprise, it came out gorgeous!!!!! and here it is:

i painted the back ground with a light pale blue with a little bit of irridiscent in it to give abit of shine

it shows resemblance to this: whch is black ink in water.

 

I think i would consider this as a piece of my art work, where it has a finished look and i think its asthetcally pleasing. i think this would be a pretty simple and easy way to make simple card designs or maybe just some simple patterns. To bring it further, i am considering using this technique as a background for my future paintings. And i would really want to try using oil paint mixed with oil on water in a big tub.

Thats all for this post~~ hope you enjoyed!!!!!



Lucia Hartini -- Spying Lens

Composition:

In the foreground,  there is a figure trapped within the zig-zag walls, wrapped in blue cloth that flows around in the painting, soft and fluid. The cool color blue contrasts with the warm orange and red color that dominates the painting. The blue color may represent water while the red color represents fire, there fore creating this conflict in the colors, making the painting look as if there will not be peace, contrasting again with the peaceful expression of the figure. The figure entrapped within the walls, lies in a vulnerable foetal position. The orange dominates the painting, reinforcing the feeling of being trapped, restrained and supressed. The figure, who i think, represents lucia hartini herself, is wrapped in the color blue. Slowly, the zig-zag wall stretches through the mid ground to the background of the painting. The ridgid red walls contrasts with the fluidity of the blue cloth. The cracks on the wall may show something coming apart, crashing or just old age. There is also a section of the wall that collapsed which may show break-through or destruction. There are also creepy eyes floating in parts of the painting, projecting colored lights towards the figure, making it the centre of attention.  Creeping through the walls, towards the figure are white mists that diffuses through the walls from the background. In the background, it is dark with red mists, creating an ominous mood in the painting. On the right side of the painting, the background is in complete darkness while on the other side, there seems to be some red light shining upon the mist or clouds. However, this red light makes the dark background look even more eerie. The cracking ground in the foreground transforms into the dark endless sky making it look like a endless fall if you step beyond the walls that confines the figure.  These areas gives the viewer a chance to imagine what lies beyond the painting and uses the viewer's imagination to create strong images that can translate to fear, panic or distress.

Painting style:

The brushwork in the painting are well blended and this makes the painting very realistic despite the impossible setting. When the impossible or surreal setting is depicted in a very realistic anger, it allows the viewer to be more attracted to the painting. It allows the viewer to place themselves within the painting and imagine what it would be like. In Lucia's brushwork, she brings out the fluidity ( seen in the smooth flow of the fabric) and the rigidity ( the firm zig zag walls).  The flowing draping fabric and the hard solid brick walls brings out a stark contrast. It embodies the situation Lucia is in. The harsh criticism and the skeptical looks of the society against her vulnerable self. 
She also uses much contrast within her painting like the one mentioned above and also the use of colors. Like the warm orange contrasting with the cool blue. The contrast is like fire and water. 
The contrast of the pitch dark mysterious space with the brighter red clouds or mists.
There is the contrast of the rigid and fluid and the warm and cool, the unknowing and known, creating a uneasy feel in the painting.

Principles of design:

The figures and subject matters are more or less simplified slightly, where the figure had the basic necessary features for it to look real and believable same with the cloth, where the folds are simple yet a little realistic. The subject matters are mostly proportionate and realistic.
The lines in the painting stands out the most. The first and the one that stands out the most is the line created by the brick walls. The lines lead the viewer's eye movement in a zig zag motion through the painting. Looking at the painting in more detail, the lines created by the cracks allow us to scrutinize the details in the painting, leading us bit by bit in to the painting. Then there are the lines created by the shadows.  The one under the figure leads us from the foreground to the figure then to the dark endless sky in the background. Then the line that contrasts with the rigid lines created by the walls is the fluid lines of the blue fabric. It flows across the painting then disappears and appears again. This leads us in a different path to look at the painting.  The blue fabric leads us in two paths diagonally across the painting. Despite areas in the painting are confined by the wall, the painting seem like a never-ending setting where the painting just depicts on part of what Lucia sees. 

Symbolism:

There are many symbols within the painting.  To avoid more scrutiny, her works are heavily symbol-laden. It allows her to express her anger and frustration.
The figure represents her angry and suppressed about gender discrimination in her society and the walls shows that she is trapped and restrained. The smog that seeps between the brick walls and encroaches upon the women shows how society discriminates against women is like to Lucia. The blue represents power as female warriors who protected the sultans wore it.  However the woman's vulnerable and powerless posture makes her donning of a blue dress not powerful at all. Her choice of blue would better suggest sadness or maybe she would like to see herself become a strong female warrior in time to come. The aggressively zigzagged hard brick walls would represent how Lucia feels confined in real life as a woman, while the floating eyes would symbolize the scrutinizing, judging and doubtful eyes of the society. The watchful eyes are supposed to look frightening and eerie. The beam from the eye is like the beam of scrutiny from society which the figure, her, cowers from.

Compare:

Compare with Frida Kahlo --- The two Fridas, 1939

Background:
  Shortly after her divorce from Diego Rivera, Frida completed this self-portrait of two different personalities. In her diary, Frida writes that this painting originated from her memory of an imaginary childhood friend. Later she admitted it records the emotions surrounding her separation and martial crisis. On the right, the part of her person which was respected and loved by Diego, is the Mexican Frida in Tehuana costume. In her hand she holds an amulet bearing the portrait of Diego as a child. On the left, a more rather European Frida in a lacy white Victorian wedding dress, the Frida that Diego abandoned. The hearts of the two women lie exposed, a device Frida often used to express her pain. The unloved Frida's heart is broken while the other Frida's heart is whole. From the amulet that Frida is holding springs a vein that travels through both women's hearts and is finally cut off by the surgical pincers held in the lap of the rejected Frida. In despair, Frida tries to stop the flow of blood from Diego but it keeps dripping…she is in danger of bleeding to death. The stormy sky filled with agitated clouds may reflect Frida's inner turmoil. Holding her own hand, she is her only companion.
   The painting consists of very fine and well-blended brushstrokes just like Lucia's. In both paintings, it depicts the painter themselves and also tells the viewer their inner emotions. In this painting, the two Fridas sit confidently but with the absence of emotion, still and motionless looking straight at the viewer. The painting is dominated by Black, grey and white color. The dash of stronger color of blue, yellow and green tilts the overall visual balance of the painting making the right side appear heavier. The image is surreal where realistic subject matters are placed in a unrealistic or impossible setting or situation. The background shows high resemblance to Rene Magritte's Personal Values where she also used the sky as a background on the walls of the room. 
  Comparing this to Lucia Hartini's work, both artists uses the background and also surrounding subject matters like walls to express their emotions of anger, pain or distress.  Both artists depicted themselves in the painting as the most direct representation of themselves in their paintings. However for Frida, despite the problems and pain faced by her, she still depicts herself strong and confident with dignity whereas Lucia depicts her self vulnerable weak and powerless. In Frida's work, through the image of the broken heart, we can directly relate and understand that she went through some heart break. So we can conclude that she used direct symbols as compared to Lucia where she uses eyes which casts beams on the figure to symbolize the discriminatory stares on her by society, taking on the issue of gender discrimination. She is more subtle with her use of symbolism. Hence trough that, we can see the difference in terms of their personality where Frida has a strong character while Lucia has a weaker or gentler character. Frida is not afraid to bring her message across with strong and  symbols that creates a strong impact while Lucia prefers to use subtle images and gives the viewer some space to inject their own views and emotions.  

Rene Magritte --- Personal Values

Personal values!

  This work depicts a room with familiar everyday grooming objects, commonly found in the bourgeois Blegian home, are arranged in a seetig seemingly ordinary. However the objects are not drawn to proportion, positioned in a seemingly accidental yet careful way. The room has walls with images of the clouds and sky, making the room look as if it is floating in the sky, drifting and there's a endless boundary. In the room, the only objects that is of proportion is the bed and armoire. She does not depit fantasy imagery, but sought t evoke the strangeness and ambiguity latent in reality. She depicts the relationships between the objects in a way that most will not, justaposition of unrelated imagery.
As for the symbols within the image, i believe all of us know it and i'm not going to repeat it~ so here's the website for the details:
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/interactive_features/53#
The unproportionate objects in the room are sized very close to a humans which makes the objects look like unwelcomed guests in the room. The unusually large scale of these objects forms an invasive presence who threatens our comfortable familiarity. The room also lacks a human touch, too neat and sterile. The objects also stands errily at attention, not welcoming at all.
However, for me, the reason this surreal painting catches my attention is due to the fact that it is painted in such a realistic way but in an impossible setting. The oversized objects makes our mind immediately classify it as unreal. However the detail in which it is painted so real, makes us hesitate and ask: is this really possible. And to me, this is what makes a painting truely surreal. The painting, almost photorealistic, from the perfect reflection of light on the wine glass and on the mirror, to the tiniest cracks on the celling, it make the impossible setting look very possible. I think this painting is the perfect example of a surreal painting and it is very sucessful in telling us its message. It uses very simple images just like a great story told in simple words. Less is more. The room in perfect proportion, perspective and scale keeps the painting balanced between the real and the unreal, making the painting surreal.

I wanted to cry while doing this work, because it took me four times just to get the picture taken... i had to do the setup four times after keeping all the objects back into its original spot 3 times!!!!!!! D:::::::: BUT ITS DONE NOWWWW FINALLYYYYYY

AND HERE'S MY WORKKKKKK
 i took the pictures with four different lightings
-edit- HEY THE PICTURE ACTUALLY MATCHES MY BLOG SKINNNNN

Normal room light

Lamp light

i like this the best!! The orange tint really suits the image

Room light from the right

All the lights!!!

This work is a photograph. Since i mentioned that Rene's work is very photorealistic, i thought why not make mine a photo? So i went around gathering objects that are of abnormal proportion and found these and i slowly built up my message as i found these objects. The background is actually an image made for the BJDs (ball-joint dolls) i had. So naturally, it is of a smaller size, made to fit the proportion of a doll round 60cm tall. I choose to use this background instead of my room is because ( it looks cooler) the single sofa/chair/couch represents the fact that im the only child in the family and sometimes because of that i feel loney, as shown by the dull gloomy mood of the background. The brown book would obviously represent studies and its one of the bigger objects. The bigger the object is, the more importance it is as of now. Together with the huge pencil, they both would refer to my studies and the importance of it. The pencil (just like Rene's wine glass) stands errily in the center, and you can say that sometimes, i dread studying and it is just unwelcomed like how the pencil looks out of place like an unwelcomed guest. The little dress at the back seems to be forgotten in a corner and this symbolizes my hobby---- cosplay!! It has been a very long time since i last cosplayed and i guess the little dress ( from my small BJD) would represent that this hobby of mine is now pushed back by other priorities. Next would be the tiny stack of books. Well if you look at it with the bigger book, you can say no matter how important you see studies as, big or small, its EVERYWHERE!!! And following that would be the small earphone (once again from my dolls) they symbolizes my love for music and how i cant go anywhere without my earphones. They are small hence also showing how little time i can spend listening to them now. Lastly, there is this tiny blue book ( a key chain) and tiny colour pencils ( these are real color pencils!! cute isnt it) . They represent my love to sketch and draw in my free time and since i dont have much of this free times anymore, it is slowly forgotten and left behind.... So this is a rough explanation of my work!!

And i know all of you are really interested in what it looks like behind  the scenes!!!!!

The magic shall be revealeddddd......

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TAH-DAH!!!!

Its just a back-drop like thing stuck onto my wall with the funny sized objects placed on it~~ <33333

Reptiles -- MC Escher

Video on an escher reptile!!!! 

10 adjectives to describe it:

1. monochrome
2. surreal
3. symbolic
4. mysterious
5. rythm
6. balance
7. precise
8. photorealistic
9. eyemovement
10. repetitive

Background:

Style: creates work in a paradoxical concept with little or no meaning

he often manupulates space and perspective to create optical illusions: creating impossible images that look plausible. The use of repeating motifs can be observed from the use of cycles and continuity of his work. he was facinated with mathematics. The precision that he uses allowed him to create such believable images.

Mood of the work: 

With the monochromatic colors and the lack of vibrant colors, this work looks gloomy and eerie and perhaps even give the viewer an ominous foreboding. the restless looking and seemingly slow crawling reptiles gives the work a very heavy mood with very little energy. however the bright light reflecting off the surface of the objects make it look maybe even a little hopeful. overall, the unmoving or slow moving objects makes the mood a little tense, still and silent or even serene. 

Description in term of elements of art and principle of design

The reptiles ( tessellated image or the realistic image) are traveling in a circular motion. This suggests the circle of life. There's one reptile crawling "into" the page, blending/ transforming/ changing/ fitting into the tessellated image of the reptiles within the pages of the book. this created an interplay between the flat and dimensional. The two lizards entering and leaving the tessellated plane provide clue that the picture is imaginative but fundamentally about the relationship between two and three dimensional space.  The image is so real yet so hard to believe that its true. Unconsciously, our mind tell us that this is possible. however consciously, our mind tells us that this is impossible! the open book with the reptiles on it looks as if this story of the cycle of reptiles is told to the viewer. and the images within the story is so realistic that it comes to life. However, the open bookis actually Escher's "visual dictionary" in which he systematically rcorded every system of interlocking figures. Every image in the work is carefully scaled and drawn to proportion and the right perspective. Escher took a great interest in geometry and what he called the "logic of space" . Tessellations, for Escher, became artistic explorations of math concepts.

what in my opinion makes this image surreal?

I feel that the fact that it cretes this illusion that makes the viewer question themselves of whether this image is real makes it surreal. Just like Renne Magritte's Personal Values, it is the notion where the viewer actually thinks for even that second that this work is real. Looking at Lucia Hartini's work, although it is surreal. With one look, the viewer can say that it is not possible that it is real. But surreal to me is the line between real and unreal. Hence with the reptiles crawling in a circle, almost like it is crawling between the three-dimensional and the two- dimensional world makes it surreal.

Artist Comparison

I am personally a fan of her's after i found out about her through the show " work of art " this show is really an inspiring show that i recommend to everyone!!!!!!!!

The first thing that caught my attention about her is this work that i found really beautiful and amazing:

Background:

Sarah Kabot is an artist who lives and works in Cleveland,
Ohio. Kabot creates installations, which are artworks created specifically for a certain space. Installation artists create an environment rather than an artwork that could be placed in any location. Sometimes an installation utilizes more than one of your five senses, like smelling and seeing. To start, Kabot does drawings and sketches of the space she will be working in. Kabot’s process for creating her installations always involves questions. She wants to understand the way everyday objects such as an exit sign or light fixture are constructed. Kabot asks us to question what we think we know about the things we see every day. According to the artist, she is “acting out her imagination of other possibilities for things...what if the ceiling was face-up on the floor?” 


This is just like the staircase illusion Escher creates


i love how she plays with optical illusion with the help of shadows.


although this is a simple concept but it has a very amazing effect.


simple but complicated in a way. this is a mathematically precise installation.

the way she creates these optical illusion is , to me, very much like the illusion Escher creates. And the striking difference is of course Escher creates these three dimensional illusions on a two dimensional platform while she creates these illusions baised on a three dimensional object.
Unlike Escher, she did not create illusions that play between whats two dimensional and whats three dimensional, the precision an accuracy to create these realistic images or installations are very much like Escher's. It is just like an installation of Escher's work.

I think this is really cute!!!

Litography:

A very tedious process but with amazing results~~