Final Design Project

It took me quite a while to figure out what I wanted to do for the final artwork project, even though I had these ideas of how I want my artwork to look like. However, when I started editing my sketches on Photoshop, I realized that I wasn't able to make it look like how I originally wanted it to be. So, I changed my idea/sketch, quite a number of a times. In the end, I decided on this:

 I started off with a sketch of a girl dressed in tattered clothes. I originally intended her to be a puppet, as a symbolization of the child being controlled by labour forces.

 Next, I applied a layer of paint splatters over the child and I layer masked the paint splatters onto the girl.

After that, I photoshopped rope onto the girl to make it look like she was hanging like the controlled puppet she was. I also coloured the background black and added dripping paint to the girl's body, to make it seem as if she was in pain, and the colour from her body (her energy, her spirits) was slowing fading away.

 I inserted a picture of wood and I used the transform tool to give the wood a bit more perspective.

 I hid all the layers of the girl and the wood, and I concentrated on the background. I made some shapes and filled them in with different solid colours and gradients.

 I used the filter tool to spherize the background and I added another similar sketch of the girl. The colourful shapes represent the head of a man that is about to engulf the girl. I also used the filter tool to twist the girl to make it look like she was about to be sucked, and I added eyebrows and a bright green eye to the man.

 I duplicated the layers of the paint-splattered girl and I twisted them to make the mouth of the man to make it seem like he was sucking the girl into his world. It also symbolizes that the girl had no control over her

body and her life.

The last duplicated image of the paint-splattered girl was not twisted as much as the others. It was added to the mouth of the man to show that part of her has already been sucked into the vortex, and that she was going to lose complete control over her life.

 I then decided to mix both parts of the artwork together. I made the wood layer visible to show that it's leading towards the inside of the man's mouth.

Finally, I made the layers of the puppet girl visible.

This was the final artpiece:

Sketches

We were asked to come up with 5 different ideas for our final artwork project, and these were the 5 that I came up with:

 This was the first sketch I came up with. I wanted it to depict the emotional abuse of a person. However, it didn't quite work out as nice as I expected on Photoshop, so I quickly tried other ideas. 

This was supposed to be the drawing of a child's feet, depicting child labour. The child is wearing a boot that is too big for it. Another boot is missing, indicating that these children are not properly treated. 

 I came across the idea of a broken teddy bear, but I decided that it was a bit too common and mainstream.

 After that, I had this idea of a girl being controlled by a puppet master, to show that the child is not at her own free will to do whatever she wants; she is being exploited. However, I wasn't very happy with the drawing of the girl because she somehow looks a little bit like a doll.

 In the end, I decided on a more realistic (I hope) of a girl being hung like a puppet. This became the final sketch for my final artwork project.

research for artwork project on child abuse/child labour

In design class, we have an assignment that we have to complete by the end of the semester, and this assignment takes up 60% of our coursework. For the assignment, we are to design something that is in accordance with the theme that our teacher gives us. And this semester, our theme is Child Abuse.

When I googled Child Abuse, a lot of stuff came up. But these were the keywords that really stood out for me:

damaged, lack of trust, worthless, anxiety, depression, anger.

These are the words that have been used to describe the feelings that children who have been abused go through. I felt so sick reading all the articles that were posted up online, especially about all the abuses that were carried out intentionally. The thing about child abuse is that the main abuser is usually someone that the child is familiar with, like a parent, sibling or a guardian. Amongst the types of abuses that I read about (including emotional abuse, physical abuse), sexual abuse and child neglect really caught my eye. The reason was because these 2 abuses are the kind that you cannot really recognize. Apart from showing odd behaviour, a normal person wouldn't be able to tell that the kid has been abused/is being abused. 

I think I already have some ideas as to how to depict all these into a picture.