Watercolour

updated watercolour artworks

In this piece, I painted one of my favourite memories made while living in Malaysia. This artwork captures the exciting moment of my first official dive after getting my PADI license, tightly holding my best friend's hand. I have created this work after discovering an interesting graphic element in a skin scuba photo I took with my best friend, while the instructor quickly shot this photo underwater.

The expression of the light coming into the water and the silhouette of my friend and myself were minimised so that the feeling of the scene could be felt without portraying the fine details. The scuba diving fin in the centre is expressed in a light colour to give a full sense of space, even with simplification.

The anecdote that Gustave Moreau praised his student Henri Matisse for his simplistic expressions and thus resulted in Matisse creating a work that became a cornerstone of Graphic Design touched me greatly.

Under the sea

I, as a Senior in high school, often get trapped in the thoughts of my uncertain future. I wanted to be a businesswoman, doctor, and even a photographer when I was a kid. I sometimes lay in bed, thinking about what I could do in the future after graduating from high school and college. How I, a normal Korean kid, could make any difference in this world. To give more detail to this piece, I took a photo of the parking lot to create an exciting composition on multiple people of different jobs. I am positioned in the centre foreground, thinking about my future. On the huge rope that works as a pathway to the bridge, I am trying to carefully walk up, trying not to lose my balance, to find what I want to become in the future.

My future is unknown. It might be because I am still a teenager, but with this piece, I wanted to draw a certain sense of suspense while delivering a personal message of feeling uncertain about my future.

Certain Uncertainty

Touch

This piece captures a moment of excitingness and my determination to reach the far end of the field during a touch game.

Sports play a huge role in my identity, as I always feel the happiest when I play the sports I love. The background of the rugby stadium was simplified to emphasise my running with the ball.

The reason for arranging bright colours in the background and limiting the use of colours as much as possible in the depiction of the figure was to make contrast by having opposite colour schemes for the background and those of the figure. The size of the coloured planes and simplified perspective were aimed at graphic simplicity. I found it interesting how I continuously looked back and ran forward at the same time. That nervousness and of "what if they are right behind me right now" was what kept me going, running through the big turf field on a sunny day.

Like this, I wish to look back at my life and keep running forward to chase and achieve the things that make me happy.

This is a work I created based on a photo of myself taken at Stonehenge while travelling in the UK; the camera's angle was tilted to make my joyful jumping motion feel more dynamic.

This piece also accurately captures the joy I had felt as this was the last trip I had taken, right before Covid-19. I used graphic tapes of different sizes and colours in the empty space of the sky to express my joyful energy. The mountains behind Stonehenge are expressed in light colours to express the sense of distance, and the lower right corner is emphasised with darker colours.

Colourful Jump

Trace

Liquid watercolour was used to maximise the spreading effect, and a hairdryer was used to allow the moisture of the colour paints to evaporate quickly, leaving watermarks on the paper. To express overall unity and fine detail, fiberglass joint tape was first attached to the paper, then after it was painted with white acrylic paint on top, it was removed at the end.

It was intended to harmonise the natural traces of water flow, colour spreading effect, and mechanical textures.

Summer Breeze

This is an abstract watercolour painting completed using intuition; the composition of the work was completed using a white Conte. After using Red, Yellow Ocher, Green, and Black, water was sprayed on the surface to create a smearing effect, and the texture was revealed with small water droplets.

The black colour was designed to feel like a brushstroke by using a sharp-pointed brush, and the white lines of conte were added in consideration of the composition so that it feels like a breeze.

The translucency of watercolour paint was intended to act as an abstract element.