Sustained Investigation IX

Spiraling

6 in x 9 in

Watercolor, paint pen, & india ink on bristol

For this assignment, we were asked to create our ninth work for our sustained investigation. With my goal of pushing perspective, I wanted to be creative in my composition in this piece. Additionally, I wanted to convey the feelings of anxiety in this piece, so I wanted the background to be black and have the half-portrait spiral into a white, jumbled line.

To create this work, I painted a watercolor half-portrait from a reference photo. I chose to do a half-portrait because I think that the exclusion of lips from the portrait will make the viewer focus on the eyes, which I think adds power and voice to the painting. After that, I painted the background with black india ink, doing multiple layers to get the opaqueness that I desired. Once the ink was completely dry, I used a white paint pen and outlined the portrait, while also outlining certain features on the portrait itself. I continued the white contour line outside of the portrait and had it transform into a jumbled line that collected at the bottom corner of the page.

The message I was trying to convey in this piece was that often times, people struggling with anxiety can have dark thoughts, hence the black background, and their thoughts can often be jumbled, confused, and out of control, hence the white line and the title "Spiraling". Overall, I am very proud of this piece because I stepped outside of my comfort zone with the perspective and pushed the composition.