Building Investigation 14

Opera House

acrylic, glue, public transport map, canvas, illustration board

4 1/2" x 8"

The Opera House piece was the fourteenth sustained investigation of a series of 15 and I chose to "investigate" buildings from my childhood in Sydney that held meaning to me. I had a much different intent when I sat down to paint this project, I wanted to paint a family favorite bar that was just north of Sydney on the coast. But I was really intent on the map background for this piece and the map that I had was of Sydney Harbour not the New South Wales coastline. So I decided to shift my focus to the iconic and internationally recognizable Sydney Opera House, famous for its sail shape. I created a brief sketch of some unique angles of the Opera House and immediately jumped into painting with acrylic on canvas. I almost always mix water into my acrylic especially when I'm painting at this scale, because I've just noticed that it flows better on canvas when I'm working more mini sized. Then I cut out the canvas and placed it on a metro map of Sydney.

I wanted to continue with the same elements I have been focusing on lately, but I really wanted to go back to the more purposeful background like I used in my Soccer Cards of Victoria Road piece, so I used an old metro map of the city. I struggled with the people aspect in this piece because the scale is so big compared to different views that I have worked with, so I added one of the happy, friendly looking Sydney water taxis in front of the Opera House. I struggled to paint the depth on the opera house, I wanted the sails to look like they had sundown or evening light on them so I made them pinkish but the shadows are kind of awkward.

The hardest part about this piece was the motivation, in that there was zero. I waited till the last night before this was due and started at 8pm and didn't go to sleep until 2ish and still wasn't done the next morning. However I'm fairly pleased with the top painting, the bottom one kind of sucks. They are definitely not my favorite paintings individually but somehow they work pretty well together.