Building Investigation 13

Longing for Luna Park

gouache

7" x 4"

The Longing for Luna Park piece was the thirteenth sustained investigation of a series of 15 and I chose to "investigate" buildings from my childhood in Sydney that held meaning to me. This painting depicts the infamous Luna Park amusement park from one of the City of Sydney Rivercats (a ferry system used for those who live farther up the Paramatta River), my family often rode the Rivercats into the city and my dad used to use them to get to work so they were an important aspect of our city life. The stop for our neighborhood was Huntly's Point which was one of the last stops before the city, and I remember one of the first things that stood out to me as a little kid, once we pulled into Circular Quay (or the heart of the city), was Luna Park. I always wanted to visit Luna Park especially when we used to pass the bright lights on our boat ride back home but never was allowed to. Although Luna Park was very much on land, all of my memories of it include the Paramatta river, so I wanted to blend these two together. I also got a point on my critiques where someone asked me to paint from the inside of a building looking outward, a perspective I have not yet explored.

I wanted to continue with the same elements I have been focusing on lately, people, lines, and bright color, and I wanted to use more solid lines than my last piece, and gouache was the medium that afforded all of these ideas. I sketched out the composition several times and wasn't quite sure how I was going to incorporate people into the piece until after I started painting. I wanted the kid to look like a little kid, desperately looking at Luna Park, which I feel like I did pretty well.

The hardest part about this piece was how technical the painting needed to be in the window of the ferry, I wasn't quite sure exactly how I wanted this composition to look, I just knew I needed to have the iconic clown face because this is the most famous part of Luna Park. Gouache is obviously less water than watercolor and behaves a little better but it is still hard to control especially in such small areas.