Sustained Investigation #15

The main idea that guided this work is clearly David Bowie. In having David Bowie be my main subject and guiding thought process for this work, I wanted to connect his health issues to my inquiry question. David Bowie has always been someone who has spoken up about his mental disorders and his battle with depression, so I thought this image of him staring into space his a cigarette would be a good representation of this. I really wanted to include the words "STARMAN" in the background because that not only was it a common nickname for Bowie, but it also shows how his mind was not always on Earth or grounded due to his mental disorders.

To physically create this piece, I started out with just a simple sketch of Bowie. That sketch slowly evolved through adding both pen and oil markers in a messy and slightly childish manner.

As I previously stated, I started out with a simple sketch and was actually planning on only using graphite. However when I was done with the sketch of Bowie, the composition of the work seemed very uneven and unsatisfying. Because of this, I added the word "STARMAN" in the background to make the piece more interesting. I wanted to use the oil markers in a messy fashion to show how messy mental illness can be, and how mental illness affected David Bowie.