Week 7… DID FESTIVAL

Monday, 26 may 08

Today, after listening to the instruction given by the lecturer, we proceeded to prepare and set up for DID FESTIVAL. We started to decorate our box and hang up all the ping pong balls. After lunch, we were told to display and arrange all our works on the table allocated by our lecturers. As we were unable to finish the decoration on our box, we brought home to complete it.

Redo of the peek-a-boo(k)

Critique week…

Wednesday, 21 May 08

Week 6 is the critique week… I report to T2 to collect my stuff and proceed to T521 to wait for my turn. I am feeling nervous as I thought we need to present our work. However, it was not. The lecturer talks to us about the work we done and areas we can improve on. They were very encouraging and even ask how we feel about these 5 weeks. We need to wait for all the people to complete their critique before we can go off as there will be a briefing after that.

The briefing was about next week DID festivals. We were briefed on the procedure of DID set up next week. We need to choose 2 of the design from the ping pong balls and draw on the lighting fixtures. We can come back tomorrow or Friday to complete the task.
The lecturer told us that we will also be going to museum, look at year 2 & 3 works and meet the grads next week. We are reminded to bring coloring material on Monday as we are going to decorate the box.

Public holiday…

Monday, 19 May 08

Starting of week 6… Monday, 19 May 08 was a public holiday. We were informed to check the schedule for our critique. My critique is on Wednesday in the afternoon session. I need to report to school at 12:45pm to collect our stuffs and proceeded to our studio for critique.

Day of Submission…

Friday, 16 May 08

Today was the submission due date, all of us had to submit all our projects. Most of them had finished their work while I still haven complete mine. We have to submit all the project at 11am expect for the Mini Me and Peek-a-Boo(k), both project due at 4pm. Therefore, we still haven some time to touch up on it. We queued up and wait for our turn to submit our work at block T2. After that, I went back to the studio continue to do my Peek-a-Boo(k), and submitted in at around 3:45pm.

Monday, 12 May 08

We submitted our home activity before lesson starts. This home activity was about drawing circles, shading using dot shade and drawing lines. Basically, we need to draw 4 lines horizontally with 4B pencil on landscape format drawing block then use 2B pencil to draw circles that just touch 4B lines without lifting the use 2B pencil to 45 degree lines that just touch 4B line without lifting the pencil from paper. Lastly, we were to finish it by using pencils from 6B to B to shade and use dots to form gradient.

Today drawing lesson we learned about human proportion. We need to find a partner to draw their human figure and shade it. It must be in the standing position.
Before we start, the lecturer taught us drawing and measuring technique. We learned how to use pencils to measure human figure.

After this activity, we were told to show our Mini me -2 dolls to our lecturers. They will look at it give comments. After that we improved on the dolls accordingly. I completed three of the dolls and left the second larger doll not completed.

The biggest doll

The third doll

The fouth doll

We proceeded to consultation session for the peek-a-boo(k) after the lecturers look through all our Mini Me. All of us were busy rushing our work as this Friday is the submission for all the projects. Therefore, we carry on making our Mini Me and at the same time planning our peek-a-boo(k).

Wednesday…

Wednesday, 14 May 08


Today, everyone was busy rushing our works. Due to the submission day on Friday, we need to speed up and work faster. As usual, we consulted our lecturers regarding our peek-a-boo(k) project and continue with our works.

Ideas exploration and consultation…

Friday, 9 May 08


Today, we continued on our Mini Me project. I went to consult my lecturer again. I showed him my modified ideas and he approved, but I still need to make a few changes to the characters. I used the drawing block to make working model to try out the 3D shades and also to decide on the size of the Mini Me.

Before we were released, the lecturer makes a slight change to the submission date. We were told to submit 2 Mini Me on Monday and the other 2 on Friday. This weekend we need to start think on how to make the peek-a boo(k) and also to complete our home activity too.

Consultation session…

Wednesday, 7 May 08


Today we have a consultation session on the Mini Me project. Everyone was required to consult the lecturers. Therefore we have to write our name on the list and wait for our turn to consult. When our turn come, we need to bring our 3D wires sculpture, the 4 outlines drawings and the ideas on the ‘Mini Me’ to show the lecturers. They will give us their comments based on the work we show them and guided us to improve on our ideas. I was told to change the ideas, as I used puzzle as my concept. The concept of a puzzle was not interesting as a lot of people had used it before, so I decided to change it. The main purpose that I used puzzle as my ideas was because I want to show connection to the 4 parts of the dolls. The lecture suggested to me to use the previous exercises to get ideas and to include the concept of connection too. He said that I can use the 4 outline as the shape of the Mini Me. He wants me to think about it on how to show connection and use the outlines and come up with ideas again. After the consultation, I went back to my seat to carry on with my ideas exploration. I think the lecturer really helped me a lot on improving the ideas. I was able to think better and modify my ideas after the consultation.

I decided to use the 4 outlines as the plan view of my 4 dolls and transform it into 3D. I also think of having a pop out on each of the doll. This means that when I open up the second doll, I can see a pop out part of the third doll. This was to create a surprise to people when they open up one by one. The pop out part was to give people a hint and also to make interested and eager to find out what is inside. Therefore, I drew out the ideas and decided to consult my lecturer on Friday.

Week 4…

Monday, 5 May 08

We pinned up our home activity which about drawing and shading 4 different volumes with shadow on 1 page of drawing block and use at least 2 different types of shading (Gradient, cross-hatch, dot and line) to shade it.

Next, it was drawing lesson again. Today, we have an interesting task to do. We need to draw our hands and feet without looking at the paper and only to look at our hands and feet while drawing. We need to make a hole in the middle of a drawing block and place it on the drawing pencil above the drawing hand and draw our left hand very slowly, without looking at our drawing block and include details like fold and lines and remove 1 of our footwear, lean forward and draw, with shading from our barefoot to your thigh. It was fun but I feel that it was difficult and I was unable to produce good drawings. With the instruction, we proceeded to carry out the task.

Next, we went to visit the workshop. Our class 01 was the first sent there. This was the second time I went to the workshop. The first time was during last Monday. The lecturer brought us there to cut our acrylic pieces. The workshops are air-conditioned. The technician is very friendly. He introduces the machines to us and wanted us to fill up a form. He said that we can look for him if we have problem handling the machines in the furture.

After coming back from the workshop, we need to show our 3D wires sculpture, the 4 outlines drawings and the ideas on the ‘Mini Me’ to the lecturers. After showing the ideas to the lecturers, we used the rest of the time to change and improve on our ideas.

An interesting Friday….

Friday, 2 May 08

We started off with a lecture today… it is about toys. It was a wonderful and interesting lecture. The power point slide was attractive. We saw a lot of pictures and photos of toys in the modern and olden days. We gain a lot of knowledge from the lecturer too. He knows the different types of toys very well. He was organized and we are able to understand the topic clearly. He must have taken a long time on the research.
We looked at many different types of toys (teddy bear, dolls, soft toys etc). I can see that there was a great different in the toys of the modern and olden days. The appearances of the toys are changing from time to time, the design changed to make it look more attractive and adorable.

After the lecture, we were briefed on the new project… the mini me and peek-a-boo(k).
For the mini me project, we will create an Art Toy in the form of a Matryoshka Doll. There will be 4 parts to the doll with different scale and size. They should be able to fit into one another resulting in 1 doll. Each doll should be expressing a different emotion that we have selected. 12 May 2008 we will have to submit it.

This is what we should remember when doing this project:

There are many things in society which influence and inspire me.
I create and reflect on those phenomenon in society.
I create every character with a background story, which is the soul of the character.
It’s important to bring some message to people through my characters.
It’s the concept and spirit behind the character which makes people think about their lives.
Jason Sui, toy designer

As for the peek-a-boo(k) project, we will be producing a document similar to that of a child’s ‘peek-a-boo’ book with the element of surprise as you flip from one page to another. This is similar to the act of revealing in the Matryoshka doll. 16 May 2008 is the due date. This is also the date of our final submission.
We must come up with ideas on how we are going to express the ’mini me’ by Monday.

We were told to bring the plastic sheets (which can be make into two boxes) home to pack our 40 ping pong balls in. After all this, we used the rest of the time to think and come up with ideas on the mini me.

We were reminded to complete our Home Activity too.