Content 4-5 Monochrome Versality: The beauty of the figure and ground design element
6 Street Art Creativity through the walls
8-11 Yo o n g R u e y Capturing portraits
12-15 Mohirakhon Mullyadjanova Getting traditional with Mohira
16-17 Pa i n t i n g w i t h m u s i c Behind the scenes: The story of the canvas
18-19 Ty p o g ra p h y Introduction to typography
Mono
chrome
versality the beauty of the figure and ground design element.
I love that it’s a format that suits almost any type of photography. Portraits, landscapes, urban landscapes, architecture. Not only that, it’s a medium that adapts really well to all lighting situations. Whereas color photography often works best on sunny days or in brightly lit studios – low light just makes a black and white image moody I find that colors can be terribly distracting in some images and can take the focus away from your subject. I do portrait work and find that taking the color out of an image lets the subject speak for themselves.ts raw, it’s stripped back, it’s honest and it allows you to show the true person.
0 GRA P Y
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PHY Playing with letters
Introduction to typohgraphy Typography is an art form that has been around for hundreds of years. Words and text are all around us every day in almost everything we do. In every piece of type you see, somebody has considered how the letters, sentences and paragraphs will look in order for it to be read by us, or make us feel a certain way when we look at it. Good typography comes from paying attention to tiny details as this can make the difference between graphic design work that is just acceptable or really good.There is more to it than just choosing fonts and making copy look good though – it is also about making things legible and readable (some of most basic functions of good typography) as well as making layouts look good in an aesthetic way.
Yoong Ruey
Capturing Portraits The Design Process
Born in Malaysia at 1994, attended the foundation course in design and now currently studying Degree in Graphic Communication Design. Although was moulded in the science stream, he chose to pursue his passion in art/design for the future. His art styles are fine arts and specifically, portraits. Most of his portraits are his friends, teachers, people who inspire him and iconic celebrities. While experimenting them with different medias such as charchoal, pencil, thumb prints and different colour hues, every work of his is fascinating. With a very good perspective of a human feature, his works are almost surreal. Here, he will explain further about his works and share some information about portrait art.
Since graduating from SMK Bukit Jalil, Yoong Ruey has consistently attracted high profile sitters in politics, culture and the media. In 2012, Yoong Ruey was featured in a chinese newspaper and his best artworks are featured. He also had a opportunity to interview a renowned artist/ interior architecture designer, Red Hong Yi, from Malaysia and now working in Shanghai. Her works inspires him the most until today. Although, besides portraits, he is also currently studying Graphic Design in Taylor’s Univesity to study the beauty of graphic design and fine arts combined.
His varied body of work celebrates the joyous and multifaceted forms that human beings express with limitless imagination and wit. Rob captures the personality of each of his subjects with honesty, integrity and above all, a sacred appreciation for the unique spirit embodied within us all. His heartfelt response to humanity is woven into the very fabric of each outstanding portrait, earning him the reputation of one of the finest contemporary realists of his generation.
I produce portraits that combine traditional oil painting with a modern representational style. I admire painters such as Jonathan Yeo, Lucian Freud and Velazquez. A good portrait is a kind of average of a person. It has a sense of the passing of time. I enjoy getting to know the subject over lunch or coffee. It is useful to have a good understanding of the subject’s personality as well as their appearance. My paintings are the result of hours of intense studying of the subject and their character, and it is this feeling of character that is exuded by my work. I am happy to work from photographs, but it is important that I take them myself. Photography is part of the creative process. I can produce a portrait within a couple of months, depending on the current waiting list.
Portrait art techniques by Yoong Ruey
Don't become dependent on tracing photographs. The sooner you learn how to draw the old-fashioned way, the better. And don't use the "grid" method as your primary way of getting an image on the paper. Sure, you can dabble with all sorts of techniques, especially when you're just getting started. But please don't become too dependent on either tracing or the grid. If you do, you will be cheating yourself of an integral part of being a portrait artist. You won't be able to draw from life. ome of my favorite portraits have been drawn from life. They have a special "spirit" in them that portraits drawn from photos don't have. If all you ever know how to do is trace, you will be missing out on a lot of fun. Drawing is a delightful thing, not a chore.
When painting portraits from photographs, the subject does not have to pose for so long, and the camera allows the artist to capture of fleeting moments that would be impossible to maintain for a long time with sittings. Using photographs also makes it easier to paint portraits of children.Even though nothing will beat the exercise of drawing from life, and using photographs to paint portraits remains a controversial topic in the art world, many famous artists, including Chuck Close, Picasso, Degas and Frida Kahlo, did work from photographs to paint portraits. It’s easy to get lost in the details when working from photographs. If you are not looking for an hyper photo-realistic style, you don’t have to paint everything you see on the picture. Likeness in a portrait resides more in the way the light is falling on the bone structure than in tiny details.
Behind the scenes; The Story of The Canvas.
Painting with music The story of the canvas. by chua Chi Yan
Pollock inspired painting while listening to Mozart’s classicial symphony. From different techniques such as splatting paint, finger paint, comb paint to make the texture a little more obvious to using primary choices of colors such as red, blue and yellow with figure and ground elements such as black and white texture. As classical music usually needs a maestro/conductor, I waved the back of my paint brush and splat the paint and allow them to express on the canvas. It was a 20 minute paint and the outcome was really worth it.
To begin the journey of getting to know our island’s street art, you must first visit two murals. These are not difficult to find as both are painted along a weatherbeaten wall of Ah Quee Street. There are many alleys around this vicinity, so keep an eye on their Paris-green signage leading to the said street. However, could the artist also be interpreting our diminishing local art scene due to our chaotic chase for ‘the next best art’. The operatic beauty piece questions if Penang has lost its identity from these newfound street murals.