Naomi Li （xiaoling）
Week 1 Sustainable fashion
This week’s theme is about sustainable fashion. First of all, I have thought about many aspects of this topic, and the first thing that comes to mind is the material. I chose some recyclable old materials as tools for my creation, such as cigarette butts that have been extinguished, old cardboard left over from express deliveries, and disposable wooden chopsticks that have been used. I conducted some experiments with these tools. The acrylic paint was spread out on the printing board with a roller, and then some simple prints were made with these materials, and they were made into an arrangement and combination. They are also recorded as they slowly fade or fade in color. The whole process is very interesting and I really enjoy it, and these materials are everywhere in life, in line with the theme of sustainability.
Week 2 Emerging Technologies in Fashion
This week we went to W22AR to see the interesting new technology exhibition. “the third world: The Bottom Dimesion” by artist Gabriel Massan is interesting and innovative. It brings together a series of different presentation and creation techniques to make the influence and intersection of colonialism and black people in Brazil. In this exhibition, I have observed the presentation of fabrics, 3D works such as colored masks, short video films, and interesting music and games. A variety of methods are used to engage visitors on this adventure. I drew some images of unknown living beings in the video in my favorite way, and these characters were very lifelike and interesting. I took pictures of lines in combination with my paintings, and then used software to typeset and adjust them to create new prints and outline these lines. The whole process is very interesting and novel. I really like the games and the life forms in the videos.
Week3 Nature
Under this week’s nature theme, I am very interested in Chinese herbal medicine. I chose to investigate the corresponding forms of different types of Chinese herbs. And I bought many different kinds of Chinese herbs on the Internet, and I found that their various forms and appearance are very special. I did some simple printing experiments using different herbs sprinkled on the printing board. Finally, the finished product was processed and edited, and a lot of interesting prints were obtained. I also did some hand drawings of these herbal plants, which are also very interesting. Finally, I made a collage of the resulting prints, then drew their simple Outlines on transparent cardstock with acrylic, then subtracted the hollowed-up parts and printed them on the fabric. The whole process of cutting clear cardstock is very difficult, takes a long time and requires great care, and I find that the simple outline is much easier to accomplish and is much more efficient.
Week4 Cultural Sustainability
In this week, I continued the theme of nature in the previous week and developed the ideas produced. At the same time, I investigated the development of sustainability culture. Combined with last week’s theme about nature, I chose a plant dye that I was very interested in. Plant dyeing is a process that uses natural plant materials for dyeing. In the past few decades, with the strengthening of environmental awareness and the development of sustainability culture, plant dyeing has gradually received attention, and the technology is constantly improving. Before making plant dyeing, I first tried to draw some plants by hand, and then drew their rough shapes on transparent cardstock. Then I cut off the excess parts and spread them on the fabric for simple print. Is in the repeated development of similar to the last week’s content, this pattern after the first loss is much simpler, in efficiency is also greatly improved.
Week5 Empathy
About this week’s theme empathy. I think the definition of this word is listening and feeling, first of all, we must learn to listen to others, listen to other people’s words, and then put ourselves in others’ shoes to feel other people’s emotions. Just like my first painting, the old woman kneels on the kneeling mat and reverently worships the Buddha God, telling her experiences, her sufferings, her unwillingness, her wishes, or comes to return her wishes and worships the god. God has no mouth. All he can do is listen. In the second picture, I picked up the ruined purple daisies by the roadside. I thought they were very beautiful. I picked them up and put them in my palm to feel their emotions and their vitality. So for me, empathy is listening and feeling.
Self-evaluation
During these six weeks, I think there are strengths and weaknesses in my project, and there are areas where I am good and bad at. The first is the completion degree, my personal progress is still too slow, similar to the theme of vegetation dyeing, I have not started to dye the fabric. And indeed a lot of printing attempts, the research part is not complete. I think the most difficult part for me is to try different ways of printing and dyeing. Some ways are my first time, so I don’t understand them very well. Fortunately, with the help of my classmates and teachers, I quickly mastered the whole process. In addition, in terms of color, I used too many colors and too mixed, there is no difference between the main color and the secondary color, resulting in too messy the picture. Finally, the good part is that my hand-drawing ability is very outstanding, and I am also very relaxed when painting, and I also enjoy the whole process of collage.
By looking at your work, I can quickly think of the theme of your work even without the title, it is pretty clear your artwork presents which shows that you have understood the concept and ‘digest’ them well. The idea of making prints by recyclable materials is fun, but it could be better if you can use more colors in experiment despite green which can make your print more diverse. I really enjoyed the way you were inspired by the art work in the exhibition, whether by the color or by the shape, and then drew with your own style. Also, it is interesting to see how you adjust these shapes by enlarging and collating them together and create new prints, and simplify them into linear patterns. I can see the contrast of color prints and linear patterns which you express well, however if you can make some combinations of these two different types of patterns or some collages that would be better. I think you works maturely with green and blue, and also finally tried the warm tone in the last work which shows more changes in your experiment. I can see you use previous prints in the fifth artwork, which shows your idea development and understanding of the session. I think you could improve in a clearer contrast between front and back layout to highlight the main character in the painting.