effort and output

catch and release

I've been thinking a lot about my creative process recently. I'm in a class this semester called pictozine and in that class, there is a wonderful community of (mostly senior) illustration and design students.

When I was in secondary school in Singapore, I was in the Art Elective Program (AEP). There were a few of us, about 13 in the whole cohort.

In the program, I learnt much of the technical skills I use to this day – I'm highly proficient in traditional (fine) art mediums such as charcoal, pastel, painting (oil, watercolours, acrylics), printmaking, and so much more.

In the program, technical skill was valued and praised. Peers who were drawn to cartooning and animation styles were not awarded in assignment grades. It was deemed "copying" and "low art" and hence not worth awarding academic merit.

In hindsight, the system that punished deviation from realism is reflective of Singapore's educational philosophy. In an effort to create an empirical, unbiased system where artistic merit can be translated into academic merit and evaluation, they sought to create a system that would reward artwork that is undeniably "good" – that meant technical prowess, composition skill and command of mediums to create naturalistic work. Any deviation from that was not good, because it could be plagiarised and copied, even if cartoonists and illustrators are often very highly skilled in technical skills, just without the desire to render realistic work. Besides, if everyone could render only naturalistic artwork, what was the point of art?

For the past five years, I've been a student at the New School. I'm about to graduate