Art Craft Portfolio-SSR

2016-04-20

Art Craft Portfolio

1 Disappearing swan river (Paper Sculpture)

I hope the beautiful swan river would not only exist in future human's imagination one day. Since the tourism is developing fast, many tourists have damaged the wild animals' living environment. I hope this paper sculpture shows the idea that a future human is imagining or dreaming about the beautiful nature view in the future because he could never see this other than in textbooks or movies. To live with wild animals in a harmonious way is one of my dreams. I also hope that this may arouse people’s attention to environment protection.

2 The lonely sea monster (Paper Mache)

While I was making my paper Mache, I finished my lonely ocean monster in imagination. The idea of making such a lonely sea monster actually comes from one of my favorite Chinese songs. The lyrics are shown in the following paragraph.

《秦皇島》by 萬能青年旅店

「站在能分割世界的橋

還是看不清在那些時刻

遮蔽我們黑暗的心究竟是什麼

住在我心裡孤獨的

孤獨的海怪 痛苦之王

開始厭倦深海的光停滯的海浪

站在能看到燈火的橋

還是看不清在那些夜晚

照亮我們黑暗的心究竟是什麼

於是他默默追逐著

橫渡海峽年輕的人

看著他們為了彼岸

驕傲地驕傲的滅亡」

I first made the main body of the monster by using recycling material, newspapers. I painted it dark blue and black to make it look more like a lonely monster.

Because of loneliness, the monster living in a sea grow his wing-like fin. I used all black in order to emphasize on his loneliness and make contracts with his ocean attributes. Another contract is the blue and black colors. Blue stands for his home while black stands for his loneliness. The sea monster comes out from the sea to land so he bravely leaves his comfort zone in order to get real freedom.

3 Blossoming in Spring (Batik)

After I painted the flowers and leaves with hot wax on a piece of cloth, it was dyed with green color and left to be dried. Iron is used to remove the wax so that the contrast will be more obvious in a magical way. The part that was painted with wax remained white while the other part became green. Then it corresponded to the theme of blossoming in spring. Not only the flowers is blossoming but also the leaves, which look also like lovely flowers.

4. Saxophone of love (Wire)

At first our teacher thought I was a student from the music major because she saw my work of a saxophone. But I smiled and said I am an English major student who only studied it in outside school in a band. It is called saxophone of love because I really enjoyed the time when I was in the band and was with my peers who were also playing instruments like clarinet and flute. Rather than saying that they brought me love, it was music and specifically the saxophone that brought me the feeling of love.

Final Artwork: Title: A Trapped Dolphin

Theme development

Environment protection is the main theme in my final art work. This is related to two key aspects—one is ocean creatures and another one is human nature. For the theme development, personally I am a fan of the ocean creatures because they look so free and beautiful under sea. However, recently the ocean environment is damaged seriously because of selfish human nature.

Why dolphins became pink? Scientists told reporters that this is because of environmental degradation. This kind of dolphins live mainly in relatively turbid dirty water. Since the environment is not healthy and the water is not so clear, after so long time dolphins’ vision has been also degraded. (Baike, 2015 ) Other than environment damage, many hunters try their best to hunt pink dolphins in order to get a better chance to train them and let them play in ocean part to earn more money. What’s more, people posted pink dolphin image for over thousands of times just to pray for their good luck. However, for no reason should the unlucky life of dolphins become human beings' luck.

Process

In order to make a base, I used the recycling material, a cover of my mom’s tea pack and it is firm enough to be the base. I painted it into blue in order to make it look like that the dolphin is jumping above the sea. The basic framework of the trap is made from wires, a technique studied in this craft course. It is also shaped similar to the dolphin because it can create an atmosphere of tensity—The dolphin is being trapped!

The main body of the dolphin is made from tie-dyed cloth and I shape the forehead round in order to make it more like a dolphin. I personally favor blue color instead of pink and cloth can be more easily dyed with blue color. The sewing process is time-consuming but important for me to connect the main body and the trap.Finally, I added dolphin fin made by can and color the base into ocean tone.

Reflection

Back to the theme, dolphins should be treated as one species of creatures on the earth just as us human beings. It is said in advertisements that “No trading, no killing.” I hope this piece of artwork will help people think about what have they done to get commercial benefits. And let them recall what is the most important thing, nature or benefits from killing?

For the art work itself, I tried my best to combine different strategies like wires, can and tie-dye. But details could be improved with more time and patience. For example, the shape of the framework wines can be modified after combination so that they may be more smooth and steady.