Sustained Investigation #10

The phrase that I based this painting off of was "over the moon". I showed this by having a swimmer diving over the moon. The pink and blue sky is based off of a picture I took of the full moon at sunset a few weeks ago. I arranged the moon, the swimmer, and the diving board in a way that used most of the page but didn't make it look to crowded with the clouds in the background because as part of my inquiry question I am focusing the way I use space.

The first thing I did for this project was draw a few different ideas in my sketchbook to help me figure out how to best show the phrase. Most of them were different jumping poses and I used pictures of ballerinas and high jumpers as references. Then I saw a picture of someone diving into a pool and thought that would be a more creative way for the person to go over the moon. The materials I used were acrylic paint, watercolor paint, and pencil on watercolor paper. I started out by drawing it in pencil and then painting the background with watercolor. I have used watercolor a lot this year but I haven't used acrylic paint at all so I decided to use that on top of the watercolor so I could have practice with it. I had some difficulties with it as far as mixing the right colors and blending them, but I think it turned out okay. I couldn't get the moon quite right to I ended up adding in the details with pencil. Once the background was done I went back to using watercolors for the person but I only used gray to make it look like a black and white photo. Then I added detail to the person with pencil.

By having the person, the moon, and the diving board all be colored with different values of gray it unites them and creates emphasis on them because they are different from the more colorful background. I put the moon slightly further to the right as a way to balance everything because the person is diving towards the left and is more on that side. I added lots of circles and lines on the moon to show texture and the shadows on the clouds also create texture. The pose that the person is in shows movement and there is pattern on her bathing suit. my project evolved as I experimented with different materials and color combinations. I think that combining the gray with the pastel colored background made it so that there isn't enough contrast. My next steps could be to go back and do the lines in ink at some point to help add contrast.