:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Rationale ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

“Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”

– Andy Warhol

Marylin Monroe by Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol, the pioneer artist of Pop Art, made us encounter the quote whilst we were going through researches for our mindmap which was the very initial step of our wallpaper design (c.f. Final Outcome of Mindmap). As the most recognisable feature of common wallpaper designs is that they make use of repeated patterns, we were inspired to design something that can represent this quote in a different approach from the stereotyped one which we consider is the style that follows the above image, one of the most significant works by Andy Warhol.

As you have a close look to our wallpaper, you can notice that each of the patterns consists of many retro elements starting from the car, half-toned lip, records, filmstrip and gramophone. We have our reasons for putting these elements.. which isn’t merely for the sake of making it look retro >.<

The car represents momentum. It is in a motion, leaving behind the other retro elements. The retro elements represent retro era, and this shows that the car is proceeding for newer generations. But you can see that as you follow the direction of the car, the car hits into another car and then to the retro elements again. All these rotated patterns together represent the circulation of generations, or the flow of time: it repeats as it changes, or vice versa.

Initially we were planning to work on horizontally repeating patterns with the same concept (c.f. Playing Around with Composition). It’s with a car leaving behind retro stuff behind as well, but heading into the same retro stuff again as the pattern repeats. But as the wallpaper had been confirmed to be portrait and not landscape, we considered of backup plans and this was one of them. But we think that in the end this version appears to be better with supporting the concept, as we succeeded in showing the 360 degrees rotation, which enhances the whole “time flow” concept.

We tried applying manymanymanymanymany many different colours which you can scroll down to see in a few posts and have fun finding your favourite version The original version is rather colourful because we initially planned to use colours to enhance the time flow as well. However we ended up with this version, as the colourful versions were aesthetically not satisfying enough, especially when they were repeated to form the whole wallpaper. The colour scheme we settled on seems more soothing and grungy at the same time, with the washed-out kind of impression it gives, which we thought could make it even more retro and cool

We tried some of collages for the filmstrip, lips and the beads to join two patterns. This was because as we proceeded on silkscreening we thought that our design appeared rather flat with the consistent textures and repeating patterns. The beads can support the whole victorian look as well. It is a little form of interaction with the audience that the wallpaper gives victorian-ish atmosphere when you see from a distance but as you go have a close look you will have lots more of discoveries!

For all three of us it was the first time experiencing to create a wallpaper design and to silkscreen something. What we gained from this project is not measurable and as this project was practically the first group project we were assigned to do in this semester, the project helped us getting to know the new classmates better

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This group consists of:-

Zumra Mohamed Waheed

Kee Poon Heng

Koyuki Inagaki

- Our print was A4 on an A3 frame, and as it is a repeated pattern we had to go through a lot of trouble to align everything.

- The shop failed to print our most important layer – the film roll and lips.

- The shop did not even align the frames accordingly #(%*)$@#

- They printed our “swirls” frame which we told them to leave!

- We started thinking of backup plans from then, and ended up doing collage which turned out great!

MATERIALS:

* 2 Bottles of Fabric Paint. One light brown, one dark brown.
* Squeegee
* Tissue & Spoon
* Screens
* Double tape and masking tape
* Tracing paper

Nevertheless, we remained optimistic and started work yesterday at 2pm.

Our first try – on paper. We were amazed and motivated to see how the details appeared on paper.

^ First Layer – the car.

Align align, pencil lines, repeat repeat:

Squeegy blues –

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SO TIRED ALREADY!!!

2 layers combined:

Even more motivated!!!

Then we noticed an abstract art piece lying on the floor.

50% done. AHH the satisfaction!!!

Whats the time?

3 AM!!!

A good 14 hours spent on this.

2 Layers combined:

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Now that the printing parts are done, we decided to use tracing paper to fill out the negative frames as it would be impossible to paint the artwork by hand. To our surprise Tracing paper gave it even a more cool effect : )

we still have more surprises!
do drop a comment !
thanks

PS. NO ITS NOT COMPLETELY DONE YET <3.

we still had a problem with our wallpaper design which was that our design was too bold and when repeated the whole wallpaper wasn’t in harmony thus not practical. in order to solve the problem we tried attempting colour variations further.

yellow, green, red and brown        inspired from our initial concept mindmap

 striped background???…emmmm not nice! :S

in the end we decided to go with this version. the image above is 1280×800, currently my desktop wallpaper. do feel free downloading it! ;P

Hope u won’t feel dizzy looking through these

now i think its better to place them diagonally as i feel like the horizontal placing looks too rigid

changing the colours was very fun hehe

hoping that the silkscreening thing somehow turns okay in the end

-yuki

Just finished tracing and refining the previous sketch. Here’s how it looks now.

Line Art:

Screens: (Yellow will be same shade)

Repetition:

Rest:

Inspiration:

Heng, exploring different alternatives for the composition : )

After trying out different compositions we like to go for the repetitive image that forms a diamond which u can see in the previous post. We suppose it will appear nicer as a wallpaper. But we are not sure if it is possible considering about silkscreening therefore we would like to ask for your opinions.

Questions:

• Is it possible to use the same screen over and over without losing the output’s quality?
• Is there anything we can improve? Either for aesthetic wise or for making it practical for silkscreening

If we can’t do the repetitive one then we are most likely to do what we have already told you.

Thanking you in advance. Hope that you can respond to us with comments asap because we need to progress as fast as we can because we are running out of time

Bw:

Repetition (Because I can, because I thought it looks cool and because it’s impossible to silk-screen it ) Just for fun guys ^_^

Oh and who is driving the car?

Comments and constructive criticism appreciated.

More coming soon hopefully.

-zummi

The below image will be the base of our wallpaper design. It’s done using photoshop and the purpose is to try out placing and arranging the elements and to see the overall balance. The rough colour scheme is applied as well. Since the actual execution before silkscreening will be using illustrator, we are planning to try applying different styles.

My concern now is about the frame thing liwen suggested us. Most likely we are going to put polka dots, considering it as something that wouldn’t kill the effect of the main visual. I guess the frame execution will be the last stage. We will try out different versions for that as well which should be reported in this blog later

-yuki

Heng came up with a cute sketch on how he pictured the composition in his mind:

Yuki did the same, and she came up with a landscape version of it which looked rather cute too. However as we are not allowed to do landscape due to size limitation in the display area, i felt slightly dissapointed. So if anyone from our class who is reading this, wants to go for a landscape version as well please let us know!

We are also working on executing the whole thing in Photoshop, arranging composition elements, a lot of cropping and moving, scaling, rotating, warping different reference images.

Digital progress is coming soon ~~ So stay tuned!

-zummi

Initial Sketches

In addition to what zummi uploaded, here are the very initial sketches from our group. The above sketches were done being based on the following sketches. Have a look and do notice our slooow progress hehe

There are the car designs in landscape and portrait. The lady’s face at the top was also our consideration: instead of coming out from the car the elements are used to shape her hair.

This is another version with the same concept – the elements are placed in a lady’s dress. We thought of doing a vector chic would be very retro and cool but anyhow we have settled with the car as it suits the concept better.

-yuki

]]> http://videokilledtheradiost4r.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/playing-around-with-composition/feed/ 0 blurrrmotion dsc00297 rept-idea dsc00299 http://videokilledtheradiost4r.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/visual-refs/ http://videokilledtheradiost4r.wordpress.com/2008/10/01/visual-refs/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:59:53 +0000 blurrrmotion http://videokilledtheradiost4r.wordpress.com/?p=39 ]]> We decided to carry out our research mostly from print ads, LP/album covers and movie posters as the reflection of the retro culture with an easy access. The followings are a few of the visual references we gathered.

:: Screenprinting with Details (Useful tips in the comments area)

:: An indepth guide on Silkscreening

:: Similar method to LW’s

:: Another tutorial but not as detailed, but you can refer to the comments area which has a lot of helpful tips

:: Silkscreening using an Embroidery Hoop (Maybe for the extra patterns we could use this method?)

:: List of Silkscreen Topics

:: D-I-Y Screen

:: How to Clear The Screen

-zummi

I guess its pretty obvious that we had a huge, huge fun working on this

Well so… the above is our finished mindmap Using photoshop as the device we tried to make our design look like a collage work, while maintaining the whole worn-out kind of texture which is one of the characteristics of retro art we admire. We decided to integrate the colours into sepia, to enhance the grungy texture and to bring out the mood of “back in time”.

And it’s necessary for me to say that Zumra’s trained photoshop skills made these things possible  

To find out the decorative elements for this wallpaper, we went through numerous pictures and documents.These processes for creating the mindmap helped us to get to know deeper about “retro” which as well helped us with the concept we were to bring out of.

–yuki

Brainstorming was done among the three of us during class.

Besides getting inspirations, our main objective was to clarify the ideas we had and organise them into groups. We grouped our ideas into different eras, design genres (pop art, ad design, etc) and so on which you may have a look at our mindmap to find out It also helped us to share the knowledge each member had, so that the others could be inspired from it. Kee poon came out with unexpecting ideas, while zummi shared her wide-ranged experience as a pop-art fan, giving us good examples.

We also found out that we three had a common liking for pop art. But our concept wasn’t very concrete then, so we decided on coming up with a solid concept later for the wallpaper design, using the mindmap as a reference.

–yuki

Digital Progress

 DADA~♪