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MY Adventure Throughout the first year in the Illustration Practice Program at the Maryland Institute College of Art, I played with various materials and experienced an amazing adventure of exploring myself.
By Kaixin Wang
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Index BIO&INTRODUCTION
FALL SEMESTER image harvest…………………………………………………………8 paper engineering…………………………………………………12 letterpress……………………………………………………………16 sewing&stitching ……………………………………………………20 lasercutting…………………………………………………………23 self-published match box…………………………………………26 art market……………………………………………………………33 sketchbook project…………………………………………………36
SPRING SEMESTER Silly City………………………………………………………………37 Stop Motion Animation……………………………………………39 Hand Lettering………………………………………………………39 Pattern Making………………………………………………………40 Self-Directed Project……………………………………………… 44
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Hello I’ m Kaixin Wang.
I am an illustrator, artist and book designer. In 2011 I received my undergraduate degree in environment design from Zhejiang University of Technology. The work experience in an architecture company made me realized that what I really want to do is illustration. I believe something that stays in your mind will someday spring up in your life. So I taught myself drawing in undergraduate, and I found the door to illustration opening for me. I worked as a freelancer with some artists in an illustration studio after graduation. However, I had begun to feel stuck. I’ve been focus on drawing skills for a long time and can not find my own voice as an artist. In the fall of 2016 I began my graduate school at MICA. This book is about the adventure I experienced in ILP MFA program so far. It illustrates every steps I made in each project and how I figured out my best working mode through them.
CONTACT kwang01@mica.edu 312.889.4142
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Image Harvest I came up with 10 ideas related to what I was focused on in the past, then decided to make a gif in Photoshop. I was taking a gif class at the same time, so I wanted to use what I learned for a different assignment.
I struggled for a long time to figure
the world taping their face with the
out what I wanted to explore and how
same look and a person pushing dif-
to express that idea precisely through
ferent things back and forth from
my illustration. At the very beginning,
morning to night. When I tried to de-
my idea was simple. My sketches are
scribe my gif, I became conflicted.
about different people from all over
During the first critique, Kim and my peers gave me many great feedbacks which allowed me to rethink what I wanted to express. I read The Train to Lisbon as a reference for my liberal arts class, which helped me to think about this issue. I asked myself if I am influenced by stereotypes when I sit
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down to draw an office worker? Do
I immediately imagine him or her as white? Do I truly know these people or are they merely a reflection of my imagination? Thinking about this, I realized the distance between human beings becomes greater as expectations influence an encounter. During the process of knowing others, our
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understanding of others is tricked by appearances and personal wishes. When someone looks at me, how do they see me? Although human beings are connected to each other in physical spaces, we are still strangers—for between us, there is not only illusion in the outside world, but also the deception that exists in the inside world.
Eventually, I made big changes for my gif. I let every character stay in two scenes instead of one to trigger viewers to think about breaking our way of perceiving others.
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Paper Engineering I’ve been want to make a tunnel book for a long time. When I thought about how can I make an unusual tunnel book, I found I have never seen a double-side tunnel book before.
At the beginning, it is difficult for me to let every shape make sense on both sides. Fortunately many great suggestions I got in group critique allow me gradually figured out how to organize each layer.
I drew a picture in photoshop first, and separate them on five layers. By flipping them I drew the back side. Sometimes I flip them back and forth to adjust the shape.
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My double-side tunnel book turns out very satisfying. One from National Museum of Women in the Arts bought one copy and record it in their artist book collection. Also there’s a woman driven for 40 minutes to buy one copy because they sold out on the art market.
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Letter press For me it is a technique workshop in the middle of the semester. I decided to print a illustration about me doing screen printing.
The transfer process is interesting and I enjoy the feeling of moving my whole body to make an art piece.
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Lasercutting For the laser cut project, I wanted to use the perfect neat edges to create some artworks that I cannot do it by my hands. Inspired by an architecture book which gradually unfold the interior , I wanted to make a artist book with the form of a honeycomb. Various materials can created unpredictable possibilities. I used cardboard as the basic material, and surprisingly, the unique texture on the cross section gives the book the feeling of honeycomb.
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sewing project I am so keen on artist book, and I would never forget the feeling the first time when I saw a book made of woollen. Making a book using fabric woollen, and colourful decoration is one of my dream.
I drew the story board on my sketch book, then started to make the first page. My story is about when I was a little girl, I spent my summer vaca-
weak! ”And as little kid I need to re-
tion in my grandma’s house which is
tain my own dignity so I tried my best
located in a small village. One day,
to follow them climb these mountain,
several kids in neighborhood invited
although it almost killed me. Then
me to go to see the ocean. I thought
suddenly I smell the sea wind with
it would be a relax hike, but I didn’t
no defense. You know when you are
know there’s so much mountains to
sweating all over because you climb
climb. Because for these kids I was
countless mountains in summer and
from city, so they were laughing at me,
too tired to think, the blowing cool
saying “see people like you are too
wind can be the greatest, happiest
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thing in the world. It’s one story of my childhood I would never forget.
I didn’t have any plan about where to put the specific pattern, just play with the materials in the process. I am proud of the two pages I have and wish I can finish it in the future.
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Sketchbook Project At the beginning of the year,each member of my class was given a sketch book and an assigned theme. We then rotated the books through the class, each creating a sketch every week before the book on to the next person. By the end of the fall semester we had each completed a spread in every book, and had explored multiple themes across all of the sketchbooks. My own sketchbook’s theme was “ guidebook to the future”.
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Self-publish project I know I am not good at graphic design all the time, so I was nervous for the self-publish project. I chose a book I read recently called NOX by Anne Carson.
Nox is a book Anne Carson wrote and created after the death of her brother. It is a work of poetry, an exploration of loss, of death and absence. Carson gathered memories and pasted old letters, family photos, collages and sketches on pages.
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The way the author talks about death is extremely sad but peaceful. The poems which contain various visual elements, make the reading experience so amazing. For the one word synopsis I picked the word “elegy� because elegy means rhythm, a specific emotion which expresses what the book is about.
The content of that book is an elegy of the writer’s brother, very different from what I was used to work on. I treat the it as an challenge for my self. From the font design, cover image to the inside, I considered a lot about the combination of all the elements, and how I tell a story when I put all of them together.
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Art Market Every time I visit the street market I keep looking for earrings, brooches, rings and all kind of small jewelry. I can not resist their charm because they are cute and affordable, and girls always need one more piece of jewelry. So I planed to produce a series of small pieces of jewelry made of felt. I designed various ugly but cute green monsters&plants, put them on earrings, hats ,rings hairpins, and brooches. Needle Felting can be a huge workload, but I learned some felt techniques called “wet felting� allow the speed become faster. The most difficult part of the felt technique was to make every piece nice, clean and solid. However, I enjoyed the time spent on felt. I think they would be welcomed by women and children. When they were displaying on the market, I establish a forest world as a stage for my products. Price: earrings $5/each, hats $25/ each, hairpins $4/each, brooches $5/each. Package: I prepared more than 20
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small velvet back bags for the jewelry. For hats, I have plastic self sealing bags.
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silly city
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STOP-MOTION ANIMATION Before the workshop, we didn’t have a clear idea. My partner Hayley wanted to do animals and I wanted to do explosion. We decided to see what will happen after the workshop. Then I realized that there’s some limitations in stop-motion animation with the sand, for example it is impossible to use many colors to make the explosion.
The thing I was most worried about is the tempo of stop-motion using sand is hard to control, because if we changed each frame too much,
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ly when it was close to 4:00 pm and we didn’t have time, everything was in hurry and we changed each frame with huge difference. But Hayley did a great job at editing it in Premier,, for example, repeat some fames which allows the tiger stayed for longer time on the screen. That makes the tempo much better I think.
Finding the background music can waste a lot of time. I found a great album called children’s playground
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last Friday night in my apartment, so
I was not satisfied with drawing sim-
it saved a lot of time when we get to-
ple pattern, but wanted to explore
gether to edit the video in Premier.
the narrative possibilities in pattern
Also me and Hayley record our own
design. I was inspired by my peers,
voice to make the bird scream and
to create patterns by making the
the tiger roar. In conclusion, we tried
comic panels into various shape. I started with drawing some lovely random shapes and trans them into human bodies. It was the first time I learned the concept of “moodboard”. For the first one sweet love, I really enjoyed the color and just indulge myself in the colorful world for a long time. For the second piece painful love, I researched many references to help me design the sharp shape as well as the color pallet. I have had the third story in my mind
many new stuff for the first time in this
for a long time, so it just came out
animation workshop which is really
naturally. I chose the hexagon as the
helpful for exploring this area in long
panel. Readers could start from a
term.
random panel, to any directions they like.
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When I “print” them on a specific
Hand lettering
object, e.g, phone case or gift package, I found the images changed because the scale changed. They are satisfying for me, but I need to commit that they look like not one set. So I changed the color pallet to fix the visual style.
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Pattern making
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I was not satisfied with drawing simple pattern, but wanted to explore the narrative possibilities in pattern design. I was inspired by my peers, to create patterns by making the comic panels into various shape. I started with drawing some lovely random shapes and trans them into human bodies. It was the first time I learned the concept of “moodboard�. For the first one sweet love, I really enjoyed the color and just indulge myself in the colorful world for a long time. For the second piece painful love, I researched many references to help me design the sharp shape as well as the color pallet. I have had the third story in my mind
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for a long time, so it just came out naturally. I chose the hexagon as the panel. Readers could start from a random panel, to any directions they like. When I “print� them on a specific object, e.g, phone case or gift package, I found the images changed because the scale changed. They are satisfying for me, but I need to commit that they look like not one set. So
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I changed the co
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slef-directed project As the preparation for our thesis, the self-directed project is a practice of doing research and further thinking. So I wanted to keep exploring that theme. At the very beginning, I wanted to make a pop-up book, that’s for sure. However, I was not sure what it would be about. I started with reviewing all the projects I did in the past year, and I found I unconsciously focused on the relationship between the inside world of an individual and that person’s larger environment. I did a bunch of research to push my theme further.
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Drawing an absurd world was challenging for me because it was out of my comfort zone. During the first round of critique, my peers and teacher thought it was not surprising enough. In the process, I struggled for a long time to figure out how to communicate with the readers through my drawings. I put a character and text in my story to guide readers going through the absurd world of adults. To make my sketches into a book, I rethought about the relationships between each pages. To find a logic sequence of my book, I learned how to cut some parts and adjust some contents. Finally it turns out as a dummy book. I was pushed to do something different and I didn’t like it as much because I found myself lost in problems when I focus on the purpose of my artworks. 46
I prefer just diving into projects without thinking about the intended result.
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I guess I was in the wrong direction at the beginning. I didn’t like it as much because I found myself lost in problems when I focus on the purpose of my artworks. I prefer just diving into projects without thinking about the intended result. The reason why I was so happy with
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my projects last semester, because I enjoy playing with materials, and ideas just came out naturally. But when I started with thinking about what is I’m going to say through my art works, I felt stuck and even didn’t know how to draw. To create an absurd feeling, I pushed myself to look at many weird stuff, which may really not my type. I found I cannot continue doing that, I was like banning my head on the wall. So I went to the decker library, asked the libralian to show me their great artist book collection. Then I felt I gradually I made a really rough demo, just wanted to show my idea more clear. Coz I didn’t have many time when I turn to another direction. also, looking though such a small hole creates a meaning , the readers are trying hard to what’s happening inside
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