Cousins Island #2

Sustained Investigation #2

7 x 12

Acrylic Paint

This is my second sustained investigation where I painted Cousin's Island in Yarmouth, Maine. My inquiry question is "How can I use color and texture to concentrate on the emotions of personal landscapes with mixed media art?" For this piece, I used color to represent the feelings that this setting gives me by using shades and hues of pink, red, and purple instead of the true colors. I have a lot of memories of this place, especially loving memories with the people I love and am closest to. When I think of love, I think of pink and red, so I used those colors in my painting instead of the actual colors of the scenery to give off the same emotion that I feel when I am there. Originally, I was going to only have pinks and reds, but when making the background, I wanted to have a sunset because I felt like a sunset brings in a calming beautiful tone instead of a super upbeat blue sky, but sunsets are not just pink, so I added some extra coloring there. I mostly focused on detailing, highlighting, and shading throughout this painting because I wanted this piece to look realistic even though the colors are artificial. I also was planning on having some hearts and other symbols that represent love in the painting to better strengthen the idea of the emotion that I was portraying in the piece. But I wasn't sure how to bring them in and I ended up deciding not to in order to make the painting more realistic overall. I believe this piece follows my inquiry question accurately and I think my process shows that with the colors I used.