Raenia Karthigasu
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Prompt: You will be doing a Triptych or a Series for your Final Project. You will do 3 or more panels, each independent artworks but also each contributing to a whole. This word is the launching off point and you are free to take it in a new direction. You can use a narrative, or a purely abstract approach. Let the feeling the word conjures lead you to your subject matter. Collect images to draw or integrate into digital pieces. Your content, the compositions, your palette and value keys all should support the feeling that the word brings out. You are layering meaning with every choice you make and building to create the impact of the word itself. Be aware of mood, density, scale, alternation, as well as how these panels will relate to one another and move from one to the next.
For my final project, I chose the word “assimilation.” I wanted to depict the two cultures integral to my family (Chinese and Malaysian/Indian) on either sides of a self portrait. The overarching idea I had in mind for the project features elements of both cultures and my parents that will bleed into the center panel to signify the idea of my keyword. I chose to use color pencils on small scale panels to blend the colors through layering. The colors I chose for the compositions were limited to unify each of the panels and create consistency. I thought that the idea of softly blending and integrating the same few colors into each of the elements would further allude to the idea of “assimilation.”