Sustained Investigation 3

Sunshine Waters

This is my 8x10 Sustained Investigation #3 of boats in the water with lily pads, a hill, clouds and birds. This relates to my life because I enjoy making clouds, and I was also inspired by Claude Monet and added lily pads in the water as my whole family loves Monet. This whole project was made using only acrylic paint. I focused mainly on color here as the emotion I chose to portray in this sustained investigation was happy. To do this, I used bright and pastel colors, because I think of soft and light colors when I think of something happy. The color I mostly associate with happy is yellow, and I think I do that because it a bright and fun color, so I used a lot of yellow in my painting. I also decided to have a plain blue sky as my background instead of a sunset to further follow the emotion I was trying to portray. When starting this painting, I had no ideas in my head whatsoever. All I knew was that I was going to have a blue sky and clouds, because I wanted all three of my sustained investigations to connect by having them all have clouds in them. I kind of just painted as I was going, as I first started out with a hill. I wanted to have a bush with flowers on them, but then the thought of having a body of water crossed my mind, and I didn't think that the proportions would match up if I added water since the bush would look extremely big, so I turned the bush into a hill. I then thought I was finished, but It just looked so plain to me. I wanted something peaceful and simple, which is why the boats were a last minute addition because boats are something that can be seen in water, and they didn't add a harsh mood at all. I still wanted to add more, which is why I asked my mom for help, and she suggested a sun and birds because she said the sun shining in her eyes always makes her happy, and the sound of birds comes to her ears when she thinks of the sun. I think that adding detail to the hill in the background could be my next step since it looks plain.