First Prize at „Crystal Canvas Rookies“ Competition for Nasiha Hasić, IUS VACD Master Student
IUS is honored to announce that a VACD Master student, Nasiha Hasić won first prize at Crystal Canvas Rookies competition hosted by a Polish game company Ten Square Games.
IUS is proud to have students like Nasiha. We wish her many more successful achievements in her future.
Read below about her creative process during the preparations for this competition
My name is Nasiha Hasić, and I am a Master student at the Visual Arts and Visual Communications Design study program.
I decided to participate in such a contest since I've always been an enthusiast for art especially digital landscape and background art. Since this competition had offered the opportunity for submission for both Character design and Environment design category, I have opted to use the opportunity and send my digital artwork as an entry for the Environment design.
The theme of the competition was: Myths and Legends from a place we come from or identify with. This has been an interesting topic that would be great chance to represent Bosnia and Herzegovina and this region.
The work that I presented at the competition is called „Watermill“. After thorough research, I found out that there are some myths that preached about watermills being scary places and should be avoided at night at all costs. It is believed that watermills were invented by the devil, to whom the attributes of the old Slavic gods were transferred and who was eager to visit. Vampires, werewolves, demons also gather there, as well as drekavci (screechers). In the water next to the mill, there is also Vodanoj, a water spirit that pulls passers-by into the water.
One of the reasons why I chose to paint a watermill is because water is one of the hallmarks of the place I live in (Bosnia and Herzegovina): there are many streams, streaks, rivers, lakes and due to its ubiquity, many stories and myths related to it were born. The myths about watermills were quite intriguing to me.
I decided to represent a very old watermill, isolated and located in a deep, dark forest. My intention was to create a mysterious, mystical atmosphere in the artwork, yet eye-catching enough to make the viewer want to further interpret it. The fog in the foreground is in a blurry-like effect introducing the focal point of the artwork – the watermill itself as well as the figure next to it. To add a bit of mysterious light and wonder, I included the moon in the background, casting its „bluish“ light onto the moody, gloomy setting.
