1) Post an image of your natural watercolor postcard sample. Any remaining questions or reflections on this project?
Making our own natural watercolors was really interesting experience. Compared to synthetic colors, the natural colors feel more smooth and low-saturated. After my colors dried, it looks a bit different from the original watery ones. The dried ones show the colors better. Even though both shiso color and dried rose petals are brownish colors, after they dried, one is green brown and, and the other is red brown. If I could do it one more time, I would try to make natural watercolors from colorful flower petals.
2) RESEARCH REFLECTION: After viewing these links, what do you think of bacteria as an artistic media? Are you excited to try it yourself? Do you sense a difference in color (more variation etc.) between what is found naturally in bacteria, as opposed to synthetic colors? Do you think bacteria might offer alternative dyeing methods that are less toxic? Are you inspired by this potential? What questions or concerns do you have?
Bacteria is a really natural substance as an artistic media. I feel pretty curious and excited about trying using it to create drawings. From Ted Talk called Bacteria is Beautiful, Maria creates a color palette which is really surprising and amazing. It already includes main basic colors, but compared to synthetic colors, I think the bacteria-based colors are limited in single solid colors, meaning that they are not good at mixing to get a new color. For getting new colors from bacteria, it takes long time to control the amount of different types. Synthetic colors could be easily added on another with water.
Bacteria-based colors should be less toxic for the environment, as long as the bacteria itself is not toxic. The only thing I have concerns on is whether too much same amount bacteria would cause problems or not. Is all the colored-bacteria still alive when it is used to dye fabric? If it is still alive after dying on fabric, when the clothes are washed in the water, is bacteria going to be alive in the water? I feel like once there is a large amount of one bacterium, it could still cause environmental problems. The bacteria might fight for food from fishes to cause more underwater creatures die. If scientists could find some specific bacteria which do not bring negative influence on the environment, I definitely agree bacteria-based colors are really potential.
3) CREATE FOUR DESIGN IDEAS that you would like to “paint” with bacteria.
4) CREATE AN ARTIST STATEMENT Post an artist statement to accompany your designs. Why these designs? How does it relate to themes of our class and your work at Parsons? Are there particular artworks, methods, or artists that influenced your choice? How does the medium of bacteria influence your design choice?
Because it’s a bit hard to create some delicate or complicated drawings on a small area with bacteria, I decide to just design some simple repeated patterns. The first one is mainly based on geometric shapes. I personally really into draw with circles and square with lines. Also, I am really into Kandinsky’s art style. It could be harder to use bacteria to draw lines, but I am curious how bacteria are going to grow on a straight line, or they might grow freely. For the second one and last one, I more focus on the natural elements. The second one includes flower and leave elements. Our class brings the ideas with creating artwork with more natural substance, so I bring the natural elements to my drawing sketches as well. The last one is a more open space with abstract natural elements as well. It shows a part of countryside view, which is opposite from our current living environment. Nowadays many people want to spend their vacations at those places because we are slowly losing this kind of natural area. The third one is a pattern that tries to mimic the geological mountain contour, which could be also considered as a natural element. Approaching more natural stuff is considered as one of the themes for this class, and that is the reason that I bring many natural elements to my drawings. What is more, the bacteria-based colors are limited, so I consider each of my drawings could be drawn with only one color.
