Shuoqi Wang

During this task, I drew inspiration from what I saw in London and created using different media. This experience taught me the importance of developing a drawing habit from the research phase and trying various media and papers without fear of failure.

First, the first three paintings were inspired by what I saw on Greenwich Street. On the street, I noticed some green shared bikes parked next to red telephone booths. The color contrast between these two objects caught my interest, so I quickly sketched the street scene with a pencil, then used colored pencils to draw the telephone booths and shared bikes, emphasizing only the colors of these two objects. I thought it was quite interesting. Then I tried drawing this scene on different colored paper (brown cardboard). Pencil didn’t show up well on brown cardboard, so I tried using a marker pen to draw the street scene, which matched quite well. Similarly, when I tried coloring the two objects with colored pencils, I found they didn’t adhere well, so I tried crayons instead and found they were more suitable. Therefore, different materials and colors of paper are suitable for different drawing materials.

Next, I saw a cake shop with a pink and blue color scheme. I really like the combination of pink and blue, so I drew the shop using crayons. This was the first time I used only crayons to draw an entire picture. I don’t think I’m very good at using crayons; when drawing small things, I felt the crayon lines were too thick. However, the texture presented by crayons is heavy, like cream, which I think matches the cake shop quite well.

Later, I went to Hyde Park and was attracted by a withered yellow tree. I drew it with crayons, but perhaps due to my poor crayon technique, I thought the drawing wasn’t delicate enough. So I outlined the edges with a marker pen, which made it look better.

Finally, when I went shopping at M&S, I saw my favorite phalaenopsis orchids, which became the focus of my subsequent creations. I really liked the color scheme of one pot, so I went home and tried to express its colors with pastels. First, I covered a white paper with pink and blue pastels. Curious about what would happen when pastels meet water, I dropped a few drops of water, shook the paper to let the water and pastels blend and spread. Then I dripped watercolor paint and let it flow down from top to bottom. The collision between watercolor and pastels satisfied me. Then I wanted to try combining pastels and crayons: first, I used pastels to lay down the shape of the phalaenopsis, then crayons to outline the texture, and finally flicked a watercolor brush to splatter watercolor drops to simulate the spots on the phalaenopsis.

Later, I tried drawing the phalaenopsis I bought with watercolor and colored pencils. Watercolor was particularly effective; a few strokes could capture the feeling of the phalaenopsis, and then I used colored pencils to add details. After that, I drew the phalaenopsis I saw with crayons, which showed a completely different style. Then I drew phalaenopsis on a black background and found that the same color has different brightness, saturation, and hue on different backgrounds. Using watercolor and marker pens on a black background made the phalaenopsis stand out significantly.

Finally, I tried to present phalaenopsis through collage. For the first collage, I randomly created with watercolors in the colors of phalaenopsis and leaves on white paper, then cut out the shapes of leaves and phalaenopsis and pasted them on white paper to show dynamic phalaenopsis, and used pastels to create an atmosphere. For the second one, I tried collaging phalaenopsis with newspapers, which showed a different style from the previous collage.

In summary, different media present different styles and effects. As a designer, one should try various media, and experimenting with mixed media can lead to more interesting creations. At the same time, I believe color is not only a visual embellishment but also a carrier of emotion and information. In the future, I hope to conduct more in-depth research on color psychology and apply these findings to textile design.