2015 Sep 2016 Apr
To be honest, the summary of my first year is a shocked year. Various workshops, Reaction assignments, Studio electives I chose, Tons of amazing inspirations from ILP peers, All of them swept the limitation in my mind. Here, you will see a recode of my entire year.
f o E T A T S A 01 02 03
K C O H S
n
time se onsen
fu fang
spacees c and surfdaness r awkwa d an
Time and Space is the first long term direction within the first year in ILP. It origins from my feelings after arrived in a new country and live as a foreigner. I apply this to some of my reaction pieces and most of the outcomes seem like experiments but not complete works. So the most challenge in this direction for me is how to talk to audience. I once really hated this conception because of the powerlessness of making a complete piece.
01 IMAGE HARVEST What am I In this project, we were asked to revisit the past and jump off to a new start. After brain storm, it became my start point of the “Time and space� direction. We were also asked to prepared and installed the exhibition in two weeks.
Untitled
Wood, Paper Acrylic, and Sculpture 8.5’ 8.5’ 8.5
Untitled
Wood, Paper, Acrylic, and Sculpture 8.5’ 8.5’ 8.5
CONCEPT & PROCESS Memories and emotions are as the tunnel which help people to cross through time and space. When I arrived in US, it is the first time that I strongly feel the existing of that tunnel. Based on the thoughts of interpret the tunnel, I start with some very surreal sketches and ultimately decided to make an installation.
Building process is really a tough one. To achieve the visual effort I proposed in the sketches, I tried different materials. One of them is lighting issue. Finally I decide to use LED lighting. And the paper engineering and cutting are also time consuming. However, the out come is not bad.
02. 2. Letter Press LETTER PRESS
For me it is a technique workshop, which happened right after image harvest exhibition. I decided to use this technique to put my 3D work into a flat design. The transfer process is interesting and I enjoy the feeling of print the flat design as a texture on paper.
03 ART MARKET Thinking from being entrepreneurs I designed a lantern with two different sizes made
by laser catted paper and
wood. I met lots of difficul-
ties through the designing
and producing process, but
I am really enjoy this project.
During the past projects, the biggest challenge for me is how to talk to the audiences. Most of the outcomes looks like experiments but not complete pieces. I once really hated this conception because of the powerlessness of making a complete piece. Finally, it started to have some progress in the Art Market Project.
Tryings and Failures
These are the SOME OF THE sketches I tried before the final solution jumped out
THE BIRTH OF THIS IDEA ISN’T EASY. After a longtime of “no-idea-what-to-do” stage, the idea of “a shadow landscape” came up. It was turned into the product "Woods on Desk" like the left. However, before this final solution ,lots of tryings and failures I experienced. The surprise just show up one week before the deadline. I was playing the paper and LED lighting to test shadows. The testing objects were projected on the transfer paper and created beautiful scene which just like my dream. Based on this I started all the work and tested again and again to make sure that could be reproduced for 25 pieces.
Shadow Landscape Each panel of the lamp shows different image. But if you turn it over, it is showing the edge of a whole thing - a man facing the wood. And toward to the end is a little house. Audience may imagine that he will finally get through the wood and walk to the house.
P r o d u c i n g and
Packaging
Feedback
The products sold not bad (15 of 25) . And I received lots of appreciations. One of the feedbacks really hits me. A lady told me that when she saw the little man standing within the forest, it reminds her grandma’s farm. She felt moved and me too. That is exactly one of my expectation - triggering audience’s own emotion and memories, leading them into their own world.
04. LASER CUTTER Laser Cutting is the second technique workshop. It used to be a huge challenge for me. How to get through the difficulties of operating the software and the cutter machine, and how to let my concept embrace this new form. These are the biggest problems I was facing. However, I finally got through them and utilized this tool in the Art Market a lot. And I also make another series works with laser cutting. The Wander is a series of mini landscape made by paper, wood and acrylic.
Wander
Paper, Wood, Acrylic 1.5’ 1.5’
05. PAPER ENGINEERING
As a reaction piece of paper engineering, I chose to depict a scene based on the idea of tunnels and emotions, in a form only showing shape. This time I focused on the cutting technique and visual effect more than the content itself. So the image in my mind is kind of blur, but the figure and the environment still telling my own experience.
Surface Several different projects and workshops which mainly created on 2 dimension medias, including book cover design, poster design, sketch book project and pattern design.
01. WORDS ON WHEELS
Words on Wheels is the first commissioned project in the first year, which is also a competition. We need to finish two illustrations according to two different poems created by children in Baltimore. I personally love the poem assigned to me and also enjoyed the imagination and creation process. However, challenges always exists.
Words on Wheels
Sketches
I proposed at least 3 sketch ideas for each theme. And after critique I selected the most appreciated ones to develop. However I still love those undeveloped ones.
02. HAND LETTERING Hand lettering is a faculty swap project. It started with a one-day practice with Whitney Sherman to loosen up and think about the outer contour of the letters. I designed a book cover finally. But still willing to try another project - like alphabet.
During Worship : Exploring the Typography
- Process -
We were assigned with different works to perform our understanding of hand lettering. I chose to design a complete book cover that paired with a title in the “imaginary library� - an Online fake library. All the book recorded in this library was made-up. They might be mentioned in movies, fictions. The book I found is called Trampled Ivy. I really enjoy the process of digging out the background from the fiction, trying to retell the story by my own understanding
Sketches
Final product
03. BOOK BINDING
This is the work I had least confident through out the 1st year. I feel like I can not imagine what kind of form I could manipulate to embody my concept.And it utimately became an exploration. I utilized the single signature technique to bind the book. And I tested the content in three different style. The outcome is not as complete as normal book, but it opened my way to explore the book form in future.
04. Sketch Book project
Nonsense and Awkwardness is a progressive direction assembled by several projects and workshops . The contents of these works are not connected to each other, but are relatively speak in similar language.
01. SELF PUBLISHING Self publishing is another faculty swap project led by Whitney Sherman and Anne Raff. It started with the design process of six characters and further to a complete self publishing project. We need to figure out the form of printout, and also produce 10 copies of this work. I personally quite enjoy the process of character design and I think it is part of the reason that I chose the character design direction in my self direction project.
Sketches and Characters
The challenges for me is how to make the characters in a complete story or sequential art form. Because story board was always a difficult part in my past experience. I started to learn from other comic artist and finally tried in my own way to make three complete piece. I feel like I could get further from this start.
02. SEWING PROJECT
This is the last technique workshop happened in the first semester. I chose to try the embroider one of the main characters in my self-publishing project. Through this process I feel the difficulties of trying to make the piece as an independent one. However, it still provided me an opportunity to think my concept in a different way.
Pattern Design
03. PATTERN DESIGN This is an unique project which provided me an opportunity to work with professional pattern designers. Through the work shop led by the founder of Print Fresh Studio - Amy, I gain a lot of experience of pattern design. It is the first time for me to learn how to utilize the mood board and combine it with my own thoughts and elements.
Sketches and Element
First Try I initially tried to take animal as the theme. I draw the animal elements and started to organize the repeating. However, I feel hard to complete the rest of this assignment . I put too many energy on the drawing and details. Meanwile, I didn't notice the lack of variation on the size, shape and propotion from graphic aspect.
Mood Board
Second Try During the process of self direction project, I desid\ ed to utilize the concept of this project in the revised version of pattern design. I reworked the color palette and mood board, took in my character design and endowed personality with the idea of abandoned things and garbages.
Character I used to design the pattern
I uploading these patterns to Society 6 and start to promote them on social media. Left is the mock up from website. On the right side is the repo send back from buyers. This is the first time that I sell some product which is using my illustration.
04. SELF DIRECTION - Character Design and Ceramic
As the last big project in my first year in MICA, self direction is supposed to be a warm-up for our thesis year. After searching for abundant of the images, photographs, books and comics, I started with the concept of alienation. That has some connections with the trying of my first semester about the time and space. However, I wished to try in a specific direction this time. I decided to start design a series characters to tell that feeling. I utilized the ceramic material and also drawn plenty of characters. These two forms started to resonate and affect each other. However, I started to examine all the outcomes and realized that the characters I imaged are telling something else, which is the feeling of awkwardness. I started to rethink about my understanding of alienation. I naturally will avoid to express the negative feeling directly. It actually is not my goal to create art. So I changed my direction of this project from alienation to awkwardness. And I started to explore this feeling with illustrations again.
Some of the Research
Character Design
Ceramic
I utilized both casting and hand building technique to create unique characters with ceramic. Some of them were transfered from my illustration ,some of them were built without accurate design. However the outcome is just like happy accident, which inspired my 2D design process as well.
Illustrations Based on the character design, I started to build scenes for them in illustrations. I tried both digital way and drawing on paper, experimented with different styles.
Page selected from "Bing Still"
Zine
And I also make two zines, the content are inspired from the characters and the illustrated scenes. First one is "Being Still". It features the states of awkward creatures in specific situation. The situation they were in have some ironic connection with their own characteristic. And the second one is "A True Solitude". I use the accordion folding form to show an one frame story.
Page selected from "Being Still"
A True Solitude
04. STOP MOTION Stop motion is a peer collaboration workshop. Emily Joyton and me were paired to finish a short stop motion animation. Before that, we went through practice which is including different stop motion techniques. However, the big challenge for us is not only the technique, but also generate ideas and let them married perfectly. The process took almost two days, but we finally make our animation work successfully.
The End
Here reach the end of first year. At this time I feel like have too many potential directions that I could develop in thesis year. However I also have stand in the beginning part on several of them .Like the starts in ceramics, the inspiration from characters. I wish to make some complete narrative pieces during the thesis year. But it is still not fixed. The challenges I've met in this year is not only technical issues. But also the confusion and questions I faced within my own mind. Getting through all of them and still keep the direction under control is the most important experience that I gained within this year.
Email fang.fu.work@gmail.com website behance.net/maryaw blog fufangefang.tumblr.com instagram fu_fangfang