tianxing wan
Image Harvest: To Someone His Chimera
It was really interesting to look back into my old notes and sketchbooks to find out quick ideas to be further developed. Through the process, I figured out that I’m truly into literature, gender issue and personal relationships. The project I finally chose to develop was a series of illustration based on a poem written by Charles Baudelaire “To Every Man His Own Chimera”.
The poem talks about a man with his huge burdens on his shoulder, walking on the street with no destinations. In the initial sketches, I combined the concept of the seven deadly sins with the poem and plan to create seven playful characters to push my using of colors.
After the group critique, I realized that it would be more interesting to combine the seven sins with my personal experience, and the results turned out to be really fresh. It’s sort of surprised for me to see that from the first project, I tended to draw traditionally more than using the tablet. I started to explore watercolor and different papers from this point.
Lust: I Hate Wearing Bras, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Envy: They All Have Big Eyes, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Gluttony: One Cupcake Every Day, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Sloth: Never Get Up in Winter’s Morning, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Greedy: Can’t Live Without Coffee, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Pride: World’s Invisible, 4”x6”, Watercolor
Wrath: Only Be Angry with Myself , 4”x6”, Watercolor
Letterpress:
To Someone His Chimera
Hand Lettering: Book Cover Design
The book titled Mom’s Coffee Smells Like Gin is a fiction novel from the Invisible Library. It appears in the book Spoiled by Caitlin Macy, which is a novel that talks about the relationship between mom and daughter. I approached the layout of the book cover in a rather simple way so that the hand lettering could stand out. It’s interesting to explore how the form of the letters could give the audience a sense of coffee and gin, that typos could be as expressive as images as well.
Other Sketches
Words On Wheels: Illustrating Poems
Words on Wheels is a cooperation that brings together the winning poems written by Baltimore City Public Schools and illustrators from Maryland Institute College of Art. The final poems and illustrations would be showed on MTA vehicles throughout the year. It’s been a fresh experience to illustrate poems written by children. Sometimes I can’t help to be too literal when illustrating others’ work, especially for the poem Broken Love, the sketches tended to be stuck in the crayon motif.
After talking to my instructor Kim about using something as a metaphor, I came up with the idea of using the Japanese pottery fixing technique called Kintsukuroi to demonstrate the poem. The technique is about using gold to repair the broken stoneware and make them even more beautiful then before, which perfectly fits the theme of “fixing someone who is broken inside�.
Broken Love
by Daisa Rollins, Grade 8
Broken crayons still color, just like broken hearts can still love.
People tend to use the ones that haven’t been used before, instead of using the ones that have been through a lot. Someone comes along, uses it, and breaks it, Then they become frustrated because it’s not doing what they wa Broken hearts can still love, like broken crayons can still color.
Why leave them there alone because someone else has hurt them Be the tape that heals and fixes what’s broken,
Don’t get frustrated when it doesn’t work properly. It’s all a part of life, someone uses it then it breaks. But you can be the one to come along and fix someone else’s m The Stadium School Teacher: George Roycroft
ant it to do.
m?
mistake. ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN: TIANXING WAN/ MICA MFA IN ILLUSTRATION PRACTICE ’17
.
For the poem For Everything There is Something, I explored collaging and tried to create a sense of incongruousness. It was really a challenge to me to illustrate in such a conceptual way. I drew several elements and played with them in order to create a “happy” world and a “sad” one.
Even though at the end it did not work out well, it was a great experience of arranging elements for applying new meanings to them. The process pushed me to think more about the relationship between colors and moods, as well as how detailed an image would be enough to deliver a message.
For Eve There is
For every W For every p For every For every For ever
For eve For eve For ev For e For e
For For
by Fa T
When? There is a Why? push, there is a pull y truth, there is a lie y fall, there is a fool ry Where? There is a How?
ery Heaven, there is a Hell ery moment, there is a now very nose, there is a smell every foe, there is a friend every smile, there are many tears.
r every good, there is a bad r every start, there is an end.
y Paul Wellington, Grade 8 allstaff Elementary/Middle Teacher: Kristina Golden Ventre
ILLUSTRATION & DESIGN: TIANXING WAN/ MICA MFA IN ILLUSTRATION PRACTICE ’17
erything, s Something
Pattern: Playful Cats
Moodboard for the Design
The biggest take away from the pattern work shop is about the size of the design and importance of the application. Mock-ups helps fixing the design a lot. When putting the pattern on an objects, one could immediately find out if the pattern is working.
Mock-ups
T-Shirt Mock-up
Stop Motion Animation: Breath
The cooperative stop motion project that I worked on with my peer Hannah Glaser is about PM 2.5 air pollution currently becoming a serious problem in China. Both of us are new to traditional animation techniques, and surprisingly we managed to finish the filming in one day. The animation started from the scene which showed the pollution of the factories, then the smokes formed into dark clouds and gradually blocking the whole screen. The windmills appeared in order to blow the clouds away but failed. In the end, the dark clouds formed a black lung in the center of the screen. We used the glass to create layers and shadow of the clouds that help forming a gloomy atmosphere. During the process, we found out that making everything moving reasonably at the same time is quite a challenge. However, stop motion animation has this spontaneous quality that enables us to animate every movement freely and understandably. Stop motion is the thing that I definitely want to explore more in the future since this media has so much possibilities to go unreasonable.
Laser Cut: Viking Boat
In the animations and TV series, the Vikings are always depicted as brave warriors and have the spirit of exploration. While in the history, their robbery of a Christian church near England actually caused the monks suffering miserably. This laser cut piece which mimics a Viking map is aiming to demonstrate the two sides of their images.
Viking Boat, 7”x10”, Mixed Media
Sewing Project: Redefining Lineworks
I love the shadows that the threads create on the clothes, and it was a magical experience to actually sew my own image and turn them into three dimensional piece.
Untitled, 5”x5”, Threads
Grandma’s Memory, 4”x7”, Threads
Define Gender, 10”x10”, Threads
The final piece of my sewing reaction piece is about defining gender. A man with long decorative hair with a woman who’s baldheaded. The stitches that created by the sewing machine feel solid and gentle.
Paper Engineering: Violinist & Social Anxiety
This project is based on a true story of my friend studying in music school. She once talked about her dream of sitting in the back of the orchestra during the rehearsal, feeling uncomfortable because of the crowds surrounded, and finally run away out of the room.
The Violinist & Social Anxiety, 2.5�x4.7�, Pop-up Book
Can someone who suffers social anxiety be a musician in the orchestra? I guess so. I even think that hiding in a group of people could be easier to find harmony and calm down than talking to someone in a party. While using the pop-up book structure to make the scripts flying in the sky is an interesting process.
Book Binding: Chrysalis
Making a book is like creating a world. The handmade book Chrysalis is about a man struggles in a chrysalis, questioning what’s the most precious thing in the world? What’s the most ordinary things in the world? Courage, pride, sorrow, happiness, or something else.
One will not have the final answer until they go through them in person. Being in a chrysalis is like struggling in the dark, waiting for reborn. Finally, he became a butterfly. But that’s still not the end. Even our eyes fool us and keep us away from the truth. The least we could do is just to try finding out the beauty of the world in the tiniest things.
Through making the book, I tested ink three types of paper which is the watercolor paper, tracing paper and handmade paper. Different paper has unique feeling that would serve the content better. The whole process made me be strongly interested in making artist books in the future.
Zine Publishing: Weirdos? It’s Okay
This zine publishing workshop started with designing six characters which are round, tall, tiny, little, giant and wide. During the character developing stage, I found myself drawing to weird creatures who would have a wide mouth to swallow a whole French bread; or round as a fan that would blow himself away. So I decided to group them up as a weirdo’s band that travels around. It’s sort of my nature to create warm stories that talks mainly about how people support each other in their lives, since we all have our weak moments. Sketching out the stories were quick, a little bit hard to limit the color palette into two.
Another part that I learned from this project is through testing paper of different colors and thickness. Drawing the zines are one part, while making them look as good as on the screen is another challenge. I finally chose a kind of paper in champagne color which is thick enough but easy to fold. When I tested them on the printer, I realized that laser printer sometimes has a hard time printing dark colors in a large area, and it gave me a different orange color every time. Even though the printing part was a little bit frustrated, I really enjoyed the process of testing everything. Learning about printing techniques is always something that I encourage myself to do, especially for one who’s interested in publications.
Art Market:
Catch the Voice Zine & Tote Bag My art market project demonstrates the situation that one who is suffering mental disorders, anxieties or other mental illnesses will sometimes be afraid to search for help due to different reasons, but they somehow will send out little signals that the most sensitive person around them may discover, which will probably make a huge difference on their lives. The aim of the project will be encouraging people to reach out to those who’s experiencing mental crisis in their lives.
Since we may not be as professional as the specialists and counselors in the clinic, we are the one who could sense the abnormalities of our families and friends around us.
Tote Bag Tote bag is one of the product that I designed for the project. It has the function of calling on and bringing the attention to the public and the people around us.
There was really a debate between putting positive or negative information on the bag during the process. I personally was more drawn to the slightly negative imageries because they are more powerful and emotional. Yet putting positive attitude on the tote bag could encourage people to face their troubles and spread the message. I received feedback from others that maybe the negative version is more attractive to the public. It’s been a really nice try to put them in the art market and see the taste of the public.
Zine
Sorry, What did you Say? The zine is based on a true experience of a friend of mine, who has suffered and still suffering mental disorders, such as sexual orientation, economical pressure given by his family, loneliness, etc. The zine shows a more vivid and direct experience in order to help us understand what is mental illness. In fact, some people were further hurt by their families and friends by saying “why can’t you feel better” “You are feeling sad just because you are not busy enough”. It would be necessary to know that these words could really further destroy people who’s already being mentally ill.
The process of sketching out and finalizing the zine was sort of painful for me. Since the experience is extremely personal from one of my closest friends, who I always feel guilty not to be with him when he needs me, it’s been a slow and emotion-consuming process every time I tried to recall the depressing things he had told me. I guess it always happens when I try to do something personal, and realized that one needs courage to look back into these memories.
Choice of Paper Tracing paper is a magical material that brings the zine to the next level. Although it was a tricky paper to print on (the laser printer keeps making wrinkles and folds to them), the colors become much brighter than printing on the plain white paper. Besides, the fragile sound that tracing paper creates when flipping the pages is another “accident�.
Self-Direction Project: Toilet, Bed, and Shrimp Noodle
This project is inspired by the answers from the online interview “what do home mean to you?”. I was sort of surprised and touched by the feedbacks that I got are completely diverse. It was a great experience to conduct a survey for making a non-fiction zine. Illustrating others’ thoughts has truly enriched my own work and pushed my work to be more conceptual.
Cut-outs that I made for creating the cover illustration
Collaging
Collaging is a technique that I always want to combine with my own drawings. It involves the touch of the artist and sort of freeze the movement into the imagery. Also, it is extremely suitable for conceptual and abstract content such as defining “home”. I used collage in this project to create a sense of intimacy in my illustrations which is an exciting exploration for me. Basically I was trying collaging in my sketchbook randomly matching colors and shapes. I got feedback saying that it’s kind of hard to see the collages since they are not too obvious, which I think it might be a great thing. Since many artists use collage as their visual language, I would like to explore further to find my own type of collaging.
Cover Story A friend told me that home means her bed and toilet (just for trying to be different from others). The day after that, she added, “and shrimp noodle”. I’m amused and thought that it could be a great cover story. Who would put a bowl of noodle and a toilet next to each other? It surly makes weirdo connection but it’s definitely interesting enough. And I found out that instead of treating everything too seriously, I began to face life with a more relaxed attitude.
Toilet, Bed & Shrimp Noodle, 8.5”x11” watercolor, gouache, collage
eed of is the S ove Home e and L Violenc
Home is the you co place that uld AS LO UD AS FART YOU W ANT
Accordion book is another format that I created for this project. I used the way that is usually for presenting photography in order to make them look like family album.
Sketchbook Project
Conclusion and Moving On The first year in the Illustration Practice Program at MICA was tough and overwhelming generally. Every workshop comes quick. It requires you to get used to one material in a couple of days and apply them to your work decently. However, it was absolutely exciting to push myself and experiment more with materials and way of thinking. I remembered every night staying in the studio without feeling the passing of time till midnight. Trying something new has always been an adventure and enjoyable. Sometimes I will immediately know that some of the techniques doesn’t suit me, but I learned through the process that one should not judge themselves too fast, and should give themselves time and be open to everything. Through making the Idea Book, I started to realize that human relationship is a theme that interests me a lot. I tried to find some kind of answer through illustration in the past, now I found myself concentrate more on simply presenting scenes and objects and let the audience decide the rest. After a long working day when I finally get home, I always lay down on the sofa and think of the “uselessness” of drawing. Drawing is probably meaningless. But it’s also a nonverbal and a more direct way to understand everything, both for the creator and the audience. I would like to thank my first year instructor Kimberly Hall for all the support and inspirations. May 4th, 2016