Design Principles / Project 1: Self-Portrait

10/05/2021 - 10/12/2021 (Week 7 - Week 8)

Seojeong Kim / 0350085

Design Principles

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor’s University

Project 1: Self-Portrait





Lecture

Week 6: Self-Portrait

-A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. The artist his free to draw himself in any style, in order to represent his psychological, emotional features, in the piece.

- Our image of others may be different from how we see ourselves. The self can be shaped by what we've been through, our social life, the differences between the outside and the inside, what we think of ourselves, what others think of us, and what we care about and what we hate.


What To Do:

1. Create a mind-map about yourself.
2. Start to draw some sketches
3. Make the self-portrait






Instruction







1. Upload your design for Self-Portrait
2. Make sure you also have:
a) ㄲecap of the lecture on Self-Portrait
b) Visual research
c) Idea exploration with brief descriptions
d) Feedback from lecturer
e) Final design outcome (pictures must neatly cropped and must not be shadowy/blur) with brief rationale
f) Brief reflection for the week




Research

- What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of self-portrait? It is a self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh. I have enjoyed Van Gogh-like works from a long time ago, and his self-portraits really impressed me a lot.


- I thought maybe I prefer oil painting-like self-portraits. So I looked for other self-portraits using oil paintings.



- I think it is very beautiful to express a person's mood or expression in this way. Like this, people can see what a person thinks by looking at their facial expressions.




Progress & Idea Exploration


- I created a mind map of myself to better understand who I am. In order to express everything I have, I wrote down various definitions of myself on the mind map.


- It was very interesting for me to look back on myself. This was the first time I thought about a lot and properly defined what I was.

- Also to others, 'Who am I?' It was also very interesting to ask. It was a time when I was able to honestly listen to aspects of myself that I would not normally hear. Others generally answered me as 'a very positive person', 'lazy person', 'mature person', and 'crazy person lol'.
 
- To get to know me better, I've attached several pictures of myself.









- I thought I liked yellow very much, but the colors I use are all black. Perhaps mixing these two colors would be fine. Also I don't know why, but there weren't many pictures of me posing properly...

- Also, I like landscape photography, so I thought it would be nice to put a picture of a landscape I took in the background.


Progression

Sketches: 

I took several pictures for my project. These are only my face and my background photos I took before.

 



- To see my expression, I took a picture of my expression when I was watching a funny video, a picture of the expression I made when I had an angry imagination, and a picture of me making a strange expression.

- And I wore yellow clothes to represent 'yellow and black'. I only have yellow and black clothes in my closet. The ratio is 2:8. 

- It was very awkward at first when taking pictures, but after taking pictures, I got used to it.

- As a background photo, I will edit and use my photos I have taken so far. These are examples.





- There are only photos I like all of them, but I think maybe I should use dark-colored photos to express 'black'.


Some angle practice




- After much consideration, I decided to use these two.



- Since my current state is a series of very stressful days, I chose an expression that looks a little angry and struggling to express this.


Some Sketches:



- I bought an oil paint brush to give my work an oil paint feel. It was like really sharp oil paint. In the beginning, when I was making this sketch, it was very difficult. Because the original oil painting produces color by mixing colors again and again, I tried merging various colors, and this took a lot of time.







- This is my design that I finally finished.

Background Editing:


- I tried to edit my background to fit my picture a little more. I turned on the brightness to make the tree next to me more visible, and by overlaying yellow, it could be used as a slightly more yellowish picture.



Final Outcome (Before)






- I wanted my bad mood to show on my face. So I spent a lot of time on the face. Also in my opinion, my favorite colors are 'yellow and black', so I practiced various colors using only those two colors. I thought it would be nice if I could express 'myself' through it. Besides, I like the 'oil paint' art work, and I used a dark background to express my stressful and dark feeling.




Final Outcome (After Feedback)




- To accommodate his feedback, I looked into the black and yellow warning signs. I was very surprised and intrigued that my favorite colors, yellow and black, can sometimes be a sign of danger.



- I made my background, based on the danger sign, at an angle to be repeated.



- And he said that my Photoshop cut was too messy. So I made this a little smoother.


- So this is the finished version that came out.


- From what I can see, accepting feedback and coming out is much better than what I completed before. Maybe it's because I'm not good at drawing. I tried to draw my face, but it doesn't seem to fit this project.


- The outlines of my photos were too opaque and something was not natural. So I decided to put something like a yellow line in my outline. In this way, the final finished product was finally completed.

Final Outcome





Feedback:

Specific Feedback: Mr. Charles said, my ideas are fine and the photography isn't bad, but the drawings are irrelevant. So he asked me if I'd rather make a self-portrait using photos, and I agreed. So he said that it would be good to use my own photo, but to make a background using various Photoshop. He asked me to try the angry and funny faces. He said that sometimes even stressful and difficult work can be digested into a funny work.

* 'Yellow and black' are my favorite colors and are also used for common danger signals. Based on this, I will try my work again. 

Mr. Charles always gives me good feedback. When I finish a piece of work, he always gives me feedback on which changes would be better and which places are good ideas. And I always accept it and change the work as I hear from the feedback. That's why I think it was a little slow, but I was able to get better results.



Reflection

Experience: This project was very interesting for me to express myself. Sure, everyone can see and express everything else well, but I found it very difficult to describe 'myself'. But that's why this project made a very deep impression on me. It was a project where I was able to think about myself again and experienced clearly what kind of person I am.

The only disappointment is that I am not good at drawing. I wanted to express my self-portrait with a painting, but my work, which I spent a lot of time on, did not look good. I blamed myself very much and was very sad. However, Mr. Charles said that I just have to try what I am good at. He told me that since this is a self-portrait project, I would like to try something I want to do and I am good at. That's why I was able to try these once again with confidence.

Observations: What I've observed in this project is that image collage and Photoshop go well with anything. When I think of 'self-portrait', I usually think of a drawing. However, I found that a self-portrait can be anything, and the mood and feel of it changes depending on the technique used.

Findings: It turns out that the colors I use and what colors I mix are very important. If you mix similar colors, you can express a very harmonious technique, and if you mix inverted colors, you can give a very strong feeling.



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