Sketching and Rendering

Some sketches for sketching and rendering class at uni. Pliers, Portable Speakers, Correction Tape and Hole Puncher.

Crochet Monkey

Handmade grey crochet monkey! It took about 4-5 hours (mostly spent on figuring out what the book was trying to say - still prefer Japanese patterns better)

Mini Peter Pan

A mini-Peter Pan doll made of felt, commissioned by MMH.

And obvisouly, I don't own Peter Pan.

Portfolio

Old Sketchbook Drawings

Aoi (the GazettE)

Homemade Crème Brûlée

After exhausting days of packing, it's best to have a lovely homemade Crème brûlée as dessert!

Headcorn

The sky at Headcorn can be a natural oil painting. :D

I.Culture

I, CULTURE is an international art project created in collaboration with fashion designer and artist Monika Jakubiak, aimed at engaging audience participation. 240 volunteers in 12 capital cities across Europe and Asia will apply fashion design and craft techniques to examine the role of craft in contemporary culture through workshops and organised public events.

What is craft? What isn't?
Who creates culture? Am I involved in creating culture?
What is important to me in the experience of creating?

I was looking into my own personal interest and feelings towards craft. In terms of textiles, craft doesn't associate with garments immediately, I usually think of the felt or crochet dolls that I make. Especially the denim teddy that I made a few years ago, from a pair of old denim shorts that I used to wear as a child and it didn't fit me anymore (see previous post). That kind of sentimental value seem to have only existed when I was a child, as now, I won't hesitate to throw away clothes due to emotional reasons, but only that I don't want to waste any materials thinking that they will be of use sooner or later.

I thought about dolls in general. It's been around since the earliest civilization, serving as a plaything for children or used in magic and religious rituals; and recently becoming even more popular as collectibles. It's such an integrated part of a child's upbringing, part of our culture. Even if you can't afford one, parents would make one for their children with old clothes and rags.

So why did we stopped doing that and relied on industrialized products made of plastic?

Dolls are definitely not expensive to make, everyone will have scrap fabric at home from unwanted clothes. All you need is some toy stuffing, some thread, and a few hours of self-satisfying manual labour and you can have your own personal doll. It's all about you-get-what-you-give, if you can deal with having the same doll as all those other people out there then keep at it, or spend a few worthwhile hours making your own lovely doll!

Teddy

I was tidying up and found this teddy that I made a few years ago with the old pair of denim shorts that I used to love. I loved it so much that I didn't want to throw it away even though I can't fit into it anymore. At the end I decided to use it to make a teddy, so that I can be with my denim shorts for longer than it can serve me as a pair of short.

(New) Paintings...?

Last week I went back to my old school to see this year's Art, Fashion and Photography Exhibition; and to collect the remaining bits of Art/Fashion work that I've left behind, turns out that there were still a pile of sketchbooks left even though I've already been back once before already. Seeing all the paintings exhibited brought back the desire to pick up my paintbrush again - having abandoned it for about a year now... I looked through all the photos I took before for all my Art projects, and found the one I used for my AS exam final piece. I loved the image, but I didn't paint it too well in the exam (and gave it to my model to use it for her own project) so I've decided to re-paint this one - in oils this time. Also, for the summer project for my Foundation course, I did another oil painting, but it was a bit hard deciding which image to be my final, and this one (with the mask) was one of those that I liked out of the whole set, so I re-edited it and decided to paint it again.

Emerging Talent - Art & Design Foundation Final Exhibition - 3D Design

Guess who this is?

This took a while, but here it is (for my dear friend - Cam). Guess who it is?

Voodoo Dolls ... ?

It is finally the end of my Foundation year, so I decided to make miniature dolls of my EPIC tutors - Pascal and Michelle. Charlotte suggested to make worry people at first, but I was not familiar with that and I liked this type of dolls better. (Will soon make one as my phone charm - desperately need a new one, my old one is ruined pretty badly, the paint came off and now it just looks miserable.) People immediately acknowledged them as voodoo dolls, although that is NOT my initial intention. However, I was really anxious when I was putting on the hair because I had to stick some pins into their heads, and suddenly, ACTUALLY wondered: "what if they feel the pain?!" and panicked for a bit, then scolded myself for being silly. Haha. Pascal has already posted on his blog about how much he LOVED it, so that was a good sign :D Anybody who wants one done can message me for the commission!