Surrealism Painting

The subject of my art is a flying boat at night with animals inside. I made this work by first drawing swirls in the background and adding on to the swirls in patterns with a tiny brush. I then painted the moon with light colors of the sky and white so it wasn't so boring with. I then painted the elephant and the giraffe and the bottom of the boat. After that, I painted the sail of the sailboat. When everything was almost dry I painted the clouds with white and light blues and purples. When everything dried and it was the next day, I super glued cotton balls to the clouds to add a cool effect, and I added the stars with a white chalk marker and the eyes with a black chalk marker and then I was done. I used all different sizes of paintbrushes to make the sailboat, background, moon, clouds, and animals. I used the yellow, white and black chalk markers to touch up the giraffes face, add the stars and to make the eyes of the animals. I used blue, black, yellow, red, and blue acrylic paint to paint the painting, and i used cotton balls and super glue to catch anyone's eye for the clouds. I chose to create this specific artwork because I had been thinking before of cool things to paint that way I could improve on my painting skills, and one of them was a sailboat sailing at night in the sky. So I decided to paint that but with animals in the boat. Specific elements and principles I used in my painting were, pattern and texture. I used pattern in the sky when I painted the swirls for the background, and I used texture when I added multiple layers throughout the painting, and when I added the cotton balls for the clouds.

Composition rules and techniques I used in my artwork was, informal balance and leading lines, I used informal balance by having the main subject of my painting (the animals in the flying boat) on the right side instead of the middle making the balance of the painting informal. I also added leading lines in my painting by immediately attracting the "audience" to the lines in my painting leading then to my subject. One thing I revised in my painting was the amount of animals I was initially going to paint in the boat, initially, I was going to paint an elephant, giraffe, penguin, and zebra, but I'm not that good at painting so I wanted to make it the best I could without ruining it so I just painted the giraffe and the elephant in the boat instead.

The meaning behind my artwork is that sometimes you need to let go. Often times we get so caught up in our lives and want everything to be perfect we get really stressed out. So sometimes you just need to take time to just let go and go with the flow you can't plan everything so you should take time for yourself sometimes too, and you feel better and refreshed afterwards. This project relates to myself because I get super stressed out easily, I'm always super busy my friends always make fun of me because I like everything to be perfect, but sometimes once in a while, I'll go hang out with a friend and just have fun, all my worries go away and I always feel way better after. One thing I would like to change in my artwork is the sky, I would change this because it is very busy and i feel like it gets in the way with subject of my painting, if I were to redo this painting, I would make my brush strokes smoother, and add less swirls in the sky.