Yuling Zheng

 For the last few weeks, I’ve been constantly stepping out of my comfort zone and experiencing a totally different culture. In this case, I want to talk about taking risks. Starts from my weekend trip to the Thorpe Park, a theme park known by its tallest roller coaster in the UK. I would be lying if I say that I’m 100% fearless for going on the roller coasters, but here I am, eager to try anything that I used to be feared for.

I created 3 drawings to record my feelings related with the 3 stages during a roller coaster ride: Gradually climbing up, speeding up going straight down, and at last slowing down. I used different medias such as watercolor, color pencils, rice paper and acrylic threads to illustrate the wildness of speed and excitement. Warm colors like red, orange and yellow represents my feelings like tense, happiness and proud. Colder colors like blue and green stands for the calmness like the cold wind passing by my skin during acceleration. It’s also interesting that our body react to our feelings too, like goosebumps, I use contrasting color circles and lines to present its shape. In this part, I want to develop through feelings first, then texture and patterns, because expressing feelings through colors for me is very straight forward and clear. In my opinion, a good design always starts with people’s personal experiences, through drawing using unique stories as a way of language. So it’s important that we keep trying new challenges and stimulate our feelings.

  Furthermore, through reviewing my drawings, I noticed that there’s less patterns extracted from these experiences. For my further development, I want to zoom in my inspirations and focus on the details.

[Drawings on tin foil inspired by African Tuareg necklace from the offsite visit to the Horniman Museum.]

[Print works using tomato slices, crumpets, and okra slices with acrylic paints on plastic sheets.]

[Using different sizes of tomato slices with acrylic colors on canvas, combine with markers that created a Pop Art style pattern work.]

[A trip to the exhibition of artist Do Ho Suh: Walk the House. ]

“Back in high school, Do Ho Suh was my first art researched artist. It’s amazing how I can see his works in person, every detailed touch on paper and it’s beyond my imagination. “

“I was deeply affected by his idea of rubbing works and recording memories, because his experience of moving from so many different homes are very similar to mine.”

[2D to 3D, 3D to 2D. ]

“I think it’s interesting to see how dimension can change and switch through patterns.”

[The Flowers, using water colors on acetate for inkjet printing.]

[Symmetric Flowers, using yellow ink as base, print marks with water colors.]

[Extension, using water colors and cotton threads.]

[Works inspired by Emily Kam Kngwarray’s paintings.]

[Emily Kam Kngwarray’s pieces that I felt most connected to.]

[The group work inspired by the off site visit to the Tate.]

“By exchanging each other’s work, we can see different ideas come together and styles mixed.”

[The Design Museum, More Than Human Exhibition]

– Group works in visual studio, using multi medias including acrylic paint, pastel sticks, charcoal, and graphite stick.

– Using contrast colors to illustrat leaf, inspired by the Bauhaus designer Josef Alberts.

– A 30 second quick blind sketch, only feeling the shell pattern with hand.

[Trip to the Thorpe Park, the highest roller coaster in the UK]

[3 drawings that recorded my feelings during roller coaster ride]