Sustained Investigation 11

"No Mask Mandate"

12x16

Watercolor/Acrylic

This is my 11th Sustained Investigation where I based this painting off of the North Dakota house passing a bill to ban mandatory face masks. Coronavirus is a topic that affects everyone right now on the earth which is why I wanted to create a piece of artwork that revolved around Covid-19 (I don't think this will be my last either because of the many ways I can incorporate the topic into art). I wasn't sure how I was going to execute my piece, but I knew I wanted to add the two article titles, and the idea of incorporating the state itself came into my mind. I drew North Dakota's outline and then decided to outline the other states, but I wanted to give them an "irrelevant" feel which is why they are a subtle green color and North Dakota is a bright red. After outlining the states, I wanted to add more of a composition so I drew and painted a mask, then started to add some quotes that anti-maskers say with quotation marks around them. I thought I was finished, but I looked more at the piece and thought it was bland. I wanted more composition, I wanted it to look more interesting. So, I decided to use a real mask, cut it up and glue it to the painting. I then got two small pieces of paper and decided to add some illustrations. One of the earth, and one of the statistics of Covid-19 in the United States. After gluing those components on, I stepped back and looked at my painting once again and was satisfied. It looked clustered, but not too busy which is exactly what I wanted. I'm really happy that I decided to add real masks because it introduced me to adding even more to my painting, and I think it was something unique that I did.