My idea was to paint this picture that my mom had taken at a concert when two bands came together and sang a song which you see in the painting. I got the idea to paint this because I thought the blue background would look good and I knew it would be challenging for me and that I had already really wanted to paint it. I started by painting the blue obrey background and I used a bit of water to help blend the colors together. I then used a projector to draw the two people and then I started painting all of the skin on them and then the black and then adding details to their skin, hair, hands, and the mask. My intention for this painting was to keep it in my room so it will remind me of this amazing concert that I got to go to on my birthday because it was a really good day. The most difficult part was adding details to the mask, and also painting the hands because hands are really hard for me and it was hard to make them look good. I took a break from painting the hands and went back to it a few days later and I fixed them and made them look better until I was happy with it and did the best I could. If I were to start over, I think I would have painted this in realism because I've always wanted to paint realism, but I'm also happy with this because this was still very challenging for me. This is a Surreal painting because it is meant to be realism, but it isn't realistic. I love the background of it and the vest I did on the person on the left.

This is my baseline painting I did at the beginning of the year. My idea for this was I wanted to attempt a landscape. I wanted to do a landscape because they are challenging for me, and I do not paint them very often. In this painting I first painted the water with a big circle of blue and tried to add detail to the water with green and white. I then put lily pads scattered on the water. Next I painted around the water using green for the grass and then used green and yellow for the tall grass around the water. I did not have an inspiration for this picture, it was just the first thing I thought of. It is painted with acrylics, and it was very hard to paint with because half of it was plastic and slowly drying. My intention for this was just to practice landscape paintings. If I were to start over, I would use different acrylic paints, because they were very difficult. This painting is surreal because it is based on real life, but it is not realistic.