Trapped

So for assignment's sake, these are some of the steps of how I designed my final artwork.

1st Step: I scanned my sketch, and re-sized it to fit an A3 size.

2nd Step: After a few corrections and modifications, this is my outline of my sketch. I used Crayon brushes that i downloaded, so that my sketch would have a more raw and rugged feel to it.  

3rd Step: I coloured the sketch, making sure i used darker tones, in order for my sketch to have a more somber feeling. The bars of the cage were coloured using 3 shades, to highlight the direction of the light in the picture.

4th Step: Shading of the child prostitute, although  it might seem so obvious (notice the lighter shade of the body)

5th Step: Shading of the hand was done, forming shadows at the bottom, to show light direction. 

6th Step: A basic background was done to set the mood of the sketch. This colour was chosen to show sadness, but also in a way to depict dirt, like how dirty and miserable her life is being a child prostitute. 

7th Step: I downloaded water colour brushes to creates splodges on the background, giving the art piece a cloudy effect, the opacity of it was reduced so that it could blend in with the background.

8th Step: An image of parchment paper was copied onto the file, to add a further "dirty" effect to the background; the opacity was also reduced. 

9th Step: I then downloaded the burnt paper effect brushes, to "burn" the edge of the parchment coloured background, to depict suffering and pain felt by the child prostitute.

10th Step: Finally, I used a light opacity glow brush to darken the art piece, darkening the piece and bringing an overall solemn effect to my artwork. 

And after all that work, I present to you .. Trapped. 

Sketch Sketch Sketch :)

So I've finally got sketches for my final assignment of the module. How time flies, it's crazy. My initial concept for the project was to highlight how people are not taking measures against child labour, despite the face that there is much awareness of this phenomenon.





After consulting my lecturer, he said that the message wasn't clear enough; and he suggested highlighting how children are forced into labour intensive jobs of sewing "branded" items. And thus i came up with this concept.

After finishing this sketch, I had an itching feeling inside, kinda like an unsatisfied feeling. My sketch seemed to shallow and now meaningful enough. That was when i remembered listening to Keane's video (Night Sky). And i came up with this concept, of how sometimes people think they are doing what is better for the child (because they can't afford to provide the child with a better life) and thus give them to people who claim to be caring and loving towards the child. Only to find that these sort of people have no good intentions at all. I thought of an idea to put lyrics from the song, to give more meaning to my sketch.

Theeeen i realized, copyright issues. Urgh :( ,  so it was back to the drawing board for me, the fourth idea of my sketch was pretty simple, whereby a dark black hole sucks the child away from it's parents. The black hole, being the black market.

And after a loooong hard thought, I FINALLY came up with my final sketch. Which is this ! I thought of cages, and how birds are always locked up in cages, never to be free. So this sketch holds the concept of child prostitution and how the child's life hangs in the hand of their kidnapper; never to be free. To further strengthen this concept, I did not draw any doors or locks whatsoever into my sketch, representing that there  is no way out for this poor girl. I call this piece, Trapped.

Keane - The Night Sky (War Child Version)

This video, speaks volumes. I want to base my drawings on the concept of this video. This video was made to highlight the issue regarding children in war torn countries. Just listening to this song has helped me conjure up so many ideas. Give it a listen :)

Inspiration

This might be a bit random but this is postcard is a major source of inspiration for my child abuse project. I visited Melbourne earlier this year and visited the National Gallery of Victoria to see the art. I stumbled upon this post card at the gift shop that I felt spoke volumes volumes to me.

 Anguish

 

I visited the gallery with my ex-classmate who is currently studying design at RMIT Melbourne and she was explaining to me what some of the paintings was about. So, she explained to me that the artist, August Friedrich, was trying to depict despair and sorrow. This art piece is called Anguish.

 

The mother sheep's lamb has died and the crows around her are just waiting for her to leave to lamb so that they can feed on it. But it's clear that the mother sheep does not want to leave :'( 

 

Looking at this picture just makes me think of how it might be like for parents with children who are forced into labour or are abused by others. Looking at this piece makes you think, and it makes you feel. The more I look at it, the more i feel like crying because of the morbid feeling and sadness of the mother lamb.

 

This picture is definitely what I will be basing my drafts on for this project :)

 

 

Artwork Project on Child Labour / Child Abuse

My lecturer recently told us that our design topic for the semester is Child Labour / Child Abuse. So here is some of the research that i have found that have given me ideas on what to design for my final design project. 

1.The Child Abuse Council of Santa Clara Country has explained child abuse as the following: 

• Child abuse is physical -- shaking, hitting, beating, burning, or biting a child.
• Child abuse is emotional -- constantly blaming or putting down a child; excessive yelling, shaming.
• Child abuse is sexual -- incest, any forced sexual activity, exposure to sexual stimulation not appropriate for the child's age.
• Child abuse is neglect -- a pattern of failure to provide for the child's physical needs, such as food, clothing, shelter, and medical care; a pattern of failure to provide for the child's emotional needs, such as affection, attention, and supervision. 

Source: http://www.cacscc.org/awareness.htm

2. An article published by FoxNews.com commented that in 2009 more children in America were hospitalized for injuries resulting from abuse compared to 1997. From the article, it also said that parents need to learn how to walk away and get help for their issues. (Source:http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/10/01/injuries-due-to-child-abuse-on-rise/)

3.  In 2001, the government implemented the Child Act 2001 which was fully supported by UNICEF Malaysia. UNICEF has especially been supporting this act through training and seminars on child development and welfare systems; and further projects have been organized between UNICEF and the government. (Source: http://www.unicef.org/malaysia/protection_4207.html) In my opinion, although laws have been set in this country to protect children in situations of abuse, I do feel that the public has yet to take this issue seriously enough.

4.  When it comes to child labour, the International Labour Organization (ILO)  has stated that an estimated 215 Million children are put to work worldwide, many of which work full time. More than half are exposed to the worst forms labour and hazardous environments as well as forms of prostitution , and human trafficking. Source (http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/child-labour/lang--en/index.htm#a1) 

5. Various campaigns have also been set by organizations to raise awareness for child labour. Some of them include the Education Campaign form Global March (Source:http://www.globalmarch.org/campaign/education-campaign) , GoodWeave's main campaign to end child labour in Asia (Source: http://www.goodweave.org/child_labor_campaign) and Stop Childlabour Campaign (Source: http://www.stopchildlabour.eu/) 

I guess with all this info that I have found so far, I've already got a few ideas in my head. I just need to draft them out soon :)