idea

2012sep-2013may

DECUE WU

Decue Wu was born in 1990 and hails from China. Before entering MICA’s Illustration Practice MFA program, she majored in Digital Media Art at a university in China. Decue is working on fashion illustra-tion, pattern design and comics, and is constantly exploring new techniques and different media in which to develop ways to observe and enhance her creative process.

P r o j e c t s

1) Fa5hioni5ta Fun!

/Pattern Workshop

/Publishing Project Lost & Found 1st Year MFA ILP Exhibition

/Four Workshops and Lightroom & Archiving Workshop

/Three Workshop Reaction

/Image Harvest

/Art Market

/Mocca

/Stop Motion

2) Other Project5:

/Sketch Book Project The Curious sketch book show

/Hand Lettering Hand Lettering show

/Words on Wheels

/Made & Sold

/Alphabet book

Fashion illustration is a recurring theme in my first-year projects at MICA. I love fashion illustration and feel passionately inspired by the beauty, volume, shapes, colors, pleating and patterns of the collections. To me, fashion is not simply about the beauty of clothes; it reveals fashion-as-art and illustrations as cre-ators of sartorial masterpieces. Fashion illustra-tion serves many roles in society. Designs record the history of a time and place, from a social and cultural perspective. The great fashion de-signers drew inspiration from many sources: ar-chitecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, literature and the science. Then then incorporated their sparks of imagination into their fashion de-signs. Those obvious and hidden elements attract me to the beauty and mystery of fashion illustration.

Since I was a child in China, I have been an avid follower, and illustrator of fashions, when I came to America, I decided to continue. My research of the the American market for fashion illustration, revealed that many fashion industries such as pub-lications, fashion houses, advertising have a sig-nificant demand for talented fashion illustrators. Many notable fashion illustrators add their own element into the illustration while showing the designer’s vision. They also document the fash-ion show as editorial illustrations for magazines, newspaper, and other publications. Although I am still developing my own unique language style for my illustrations, my direction is clearer because of the created artwork, especially those that com-bine practical experience with innovative ideas.

For the other projects, some of them are re-lated to the fashion theme. Some of them just gave me opportunities to think and try differ-ent kind of illustrations and experiment in different media and techniques as a creative illustrator. It has been very helpful and mean-ingful to find new ways to express myself. For example, I have learned about comics, life-style illustration, and hand lettering among others; each has broadened my mind improved my skills as a professional illustrator.

p a t t e r np a t t e r np a t t e r np a t t e r n

I was prompted to create these funky patterns by several great designers such as Dali, Charles Jourdan, Elsa Schiaparelli. I com-bined some daily objects to make an interest-ing relationship with fashion stuff like an-imal-shaped shoes, fruit-shaped sunglasses, telephone hat, animal-shaped bags and others. I experimented to arrange the objects into a nice pattern which required a lot of pa-tience. I learned a lot from the workshop be-cause it was practical. It was a fun process, and it also helped me to envision design pat-terns as another tool of fashion illustrator.

pattern

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pattern

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Fashion, which is seasonally driven, is an interesting sub-ject for a calendar. My pub-lishing project was to cre-ate a 2013 calendar with the fashion illustrations I cre-ated in the first semester. All illustrations were se-lected from my favorite fash-ion designers’ collections, such as Raf Simons for Chris-tian Dior, Junya Watanabe for Junya Watanabe, Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent Paris among others. The pictures depict previous shows and the lat-est styles. Each image is ar-ranged to match the month or the season. The calendar is constructed so that the first six months are on one side and the last six months are on the other side. The two sides have been stitched together.

P U B L I S H I N G P R O J E C T

I select-ed four im-ages from the calen-dar illus-t r a t i o n s to display on the fall e x h i b i -tion Lost & Found.

Lost & f o u n d 1st year mfa ilpe x h i -b i t i o n They were Celine FW12, Dries Van Noten FW11, Alexander Mc-Queen SS10, and Jil Sander FW12.

4 workshops:

- paper engineering- book binding- letter press- sewing

Lightroom & Archiving workshop:

lightroom assists me in managing large quantities of digital im-ages. Also, it can add credits to the images in order to be a pro-fessional illustrator.

The idea I selected to make hand-made, book-shaped clutch. The techniques I chose were sewing, paper engineering and book binding. I was fascinated and in-spired by Olympia Le-tan’s book-clutch handbag, so I decided to make a book-shaped box as a package to contain my fashion calendar and cards. I embroi-dered the fashion illustration, which is designed by me, on the cover. I also made a calendar pop-up card and a calendar us-ing the perfect binding technique inside the box. The concept of fashion illus-tration by sewing is very innovative, it is based on drawing on paper, and it also relates to the fashion products market.

- paper engineering

- book binding

- sewing

3 workshop reaction3 workshop reaction

The Images Harvest Project is to consid-er the old work we did before, and then to recreate the artwork with new ideas.

i m a g e

The Images Harvest Project is to consid-er the old work we did before, and then to recreate the artwork with new ideas.

e h ar e s tv

image

harvest

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image harvest I completed several sketches for ten ideas that helped me to recon-sider my older work. Most of sketches are relate to the fashion theme, such as paper dolls, pa-per accessories, pattern design, fashion pop-up invitation cards, em-broidered fashion il-lustration, life-style drawing, silk-screen-print pattern and so on.

It was a valuable experience to slow me down to re-connect to the old work, and to develop new ideas based. Actually, in the latter projects and even the future, this project reminded me to rethinking creative ideas, to introspect my-self, and to produce new artwork.

art market

disc

Phenak

istosc

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INSTRACTION

INSTRUCTION

INSTRACTION

I chose one idea from my Image Harvest Project ten ideas: the Phenakistoscope disc. I did some research and found an interesting way to combine illustrations in order to make a Phenakistoscope paper device. Phenakistoscope was an early anima-tion device that uses sequential motion drawings which are divided by certain angles on a spinning disc. People can use the particular machine to look through so that they experience the illusion of motion. I chose the simple idea because it does not need a machine, but the audience can view ani-mation through the mirror. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slots at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. I created two simple ani-mation: one of them is about a model dressed in a classic Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian Dress throw-ing high heels; the other one is a model dressed in an Yves Saint Laurent Pop-art Dress tossing her shoes. I think it was an interesting gift to sell at the art market; it was also a new, funky way to explore the fantasy elements of the fashion indus-try. I also gained sales experience at the market.

art market

zine / personal prints

OPP0SITE As T T R A C T

OPP0SITE As T T R A C T

For Mocca, I did an illustration for Mocca zine with my classmates in the program. The zine’s theme was Opposite Attraction. I also created some personal-style fash-ion illustration prints which were inspired from the fashion cam-paign and collection sold at the market in the second semester.

inspired by jil sander fall winter 2011 ad campaign, 2013.

inspired by jil sander fall winter 2011 ad campaign, 2013. inspired by yohji yamamoto spring summer 2012, 2013.

inspired by christian dior fall winter 2012 couture, 2013.

inspired by jill sander navy ad campaign, 2013.

inspired by prada srping summer 2011 ad campaign, 2013.

inspired by prada srping summer 2011 ad campaign, 2013. inspired by christian dior fall winter 2013, 2013.

stop motion

It was my first time to make a stop motion. Although I gained film-editing experience at my college, it was still a challenge for me to connect the images smoothly to make a fluid anima-tion. The idea I was inspired by my favorite designer Hussein Cha-layan who was an innovative and experimental fashion designer. He loved to explore unusual ideas like using hi-tech applications to make dresses that change while on the runway. He made the run-way show more like a stage per-formance for the audience. So I took the idea of changing clothes on the runway and developed it by designing the paper-cut dolls. Also at the beginning of the mo-tion, I took the idea of art mar-ket Phenakistoscope disc to em-phasize the title of “Fashionista Fun!”. The critics advised me to exaggerate the dresses in the an-imation to present more fantas-tic expressions for the stage.

fashionista

fun!

sketchbook project

The Sketchbook Project curated by Brooklyn Art Library is a global, crowd-sourced art project and interactive, traveling exhibition of hand-made books. Every sketchbook has its specif-ic subject; when we finished the one page of illustration for our sketchbook, we exchanged the sketchbooks by turns with the classmates in the program. By the end of the first semester, all sketchbooks would be handed in to Brooklyn Art Library collection. It was very interest-ing to see different artwork for the same sub-ject; some of my classmates really inspired me to try the different art forms illustration, such as collage, paper-cut, embroidery and pop-up art. It became sort of a sketch journal to me, one that connected my personal daily life with the subjects recorded in the book.

cover illustra-tion for strang-er theme sketchbook

First page illustra-tions for strang-er theme sketchbook

stranger

List

chapb00k

documentation

atlas

creature

journalism

creature

journalism

catalogue

dinasour

dwelling

sketch bookshow

w rds n wheels

A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

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A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

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A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

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A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

Green is happy.It is a piece of gum,Or my teacher’s eyes.I see it at Patterson Park on Mondays.It feels exciting.Without green, we would not have green

Green by Julie LopezGrade 3School: Holabird AcademyTeachers: Leanne Riordan and Erika Savage

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The MTA has collabo-rated with Baltimore City Public School and MICA Illustra-tion Practice Program to celebrate poetry and art in transit. The artwork we cre-ated with the select-ed poems were pub-lished and displayed as posters on MTA buses in Baltimore.

untitled

wheels

w rds n wheels

A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

ILLU

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SIG

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MFA

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A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

ILLU

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ATIO

N &

DES

IGN

: DIY

OU

WU

/ M

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MFA

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LUST

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A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

ILLU

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SIG

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‘14

A Joint Project of:

Baltimore Montessori Public Charter SchoolKIPP: Uiima Village AcademyMaryland Institute College of ArtMidtown AcademyThe Mount Washington School

Green is happy.It is a piece of gum,Or my teacher’s eyes.I see it at Patterson Park on Mondays.It feels exciting.Without green, we would not have green

Green by Julie LopezGrade 3School: Holabird AcademyTeachers: Leanne Riordan and Erika Savage

ILLU

STR

ATIO

N &

DES

IGN

: DIY

OU

WU

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MFA

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It was a very fresh and exciting experience to me, because the two poems I cooperate with, were from eight to ten chil-dren. The poems were so innocent and pure; they reminded me of my child-hood when I was creating the artwork. I needed to push myself into the innocent atmosphere and emotion to create the sweet artwork. I also had to consider issues like identifying the public audience on the MTA bus lines. The most memora-ble part of this proj-ect was the party we had with those adorable children in MTA building.

green

wheels

I did some hand-drawn lettering before,especially for the botanical alphabets I designed in China.

I enjoyed this project very much; it led me to think about different directions of letter design.In this project, I did a series of hand-lettered words based on constructing sen-

tences with each other’s work in my program. For some letterings, I just combined fashion illustration as well, in order to make the model’s positions similar to the shape of alphabets. I personally love hand-drawn lettering versus computer techniques. It was a very exciting project for me to widen my imagi-nation to create new ideas between shapes and objects.

After this project,our program exhibition team also held a show in the Fox Building, on the third hallway floor.

I did some hand-drawn lettering before,especially for the botanical alphabets I designed in China.

I enjoyed this project very much; it led me to think about different directions of letter design.In this project, I did a series of hand-lettered words based on constructing sen-

tences with each other’s work in my program. For some letterings, I just combined fashion illustration as well, in order to make the model’s positions similar to the shape of alphabets. I personally love hand-drawn lettering versus computer techniques. It was a very exciting project for me to widen my imagi-nation to create new ideas between shapes and objects.

After this project,our program exhibition team also held a show in the Fox Building, on the third hallway floor.

Made & Sold project to me is kind of an-other Image Harvest Project. I did a com-ic-style personal journal a couple of days before the workshop and then I decided to explore it as a made & sold project. My comic was about my experience of the re-corded snow storm in Boston; it mainly doc-uments the influence of the events with my personal homesick emotions. In the story, I also narratively presented two comparisons of American life-style and Chinese culture. For Day One assignment, I re-arranged the story and gave it an instant book. For Day Two and Three, the assignments challenged me to design buttons and packages for my inspiration. I took the major characters and emphasized the main moment-to-moment scenes into the button design, and also created new packages for the products. The overall experience was very practical.

Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold Made & sold

instant book

application

comics

button

pin

alphabet booko

for

owl

Designed by Decue Wuillustrated by Decue Wuemail: dwu at mica dot edu

designed & illustrated by decue wu