To start off with the background, I used a damp sponge to blend out a couple colours. I chose a few shades of brown and pink as I wanted to refer back the original art display that I based my piece on: ‘What Would You Do If These Crackers Were Real Pistols?’. My piece is about how people seem to forget about the pandemic and don’t remember the significance it had impacted on our lives. Most people moved on, but some people still can’t let go of how much it changed their lives.

I thought the colours complemented each other very beautifully. I also chose these colours because I didn’t want them to contrast too much, because later in the painting process I would use a bright colour for my number and mask, and I wanted that to stand out more so I stuck with these neutral tones. At first, I just blended it out like normal, creating a ‘cloud’ like effect. Then I went in with another layer of paint to make the brown overlap a bit more than the pink.

My second step started with drawing the number 19 on the bottom left corner of my piece. The stencils didn’t work out for me, so I decided to work free-hand as it gave me more freedom to decide on the size and spacing of my number. I then filed it in with a light turquoise colour. I chose this colour because it was similar to what people think a bacteria cell might look like since my piece was about the coronavirus breakout. It stood out nicely and was what I was going for, in order to give a clear message. 

My third step was to draw the 4 falling masks, this was the midground. When I was painting, I decided I wanted to make the shading kind of simple as it sort of exactly reflected on what my piece meant. The story was simple and straight forward, and I had a clear image of what I wanted to express in my art. 

After that I started making the foreground of the piece. For this, I used a wood block and some different tints and shades, a bit lighter and a bit darker than my background colours. My technique was applying paint of the wood block and stamping it on the corners of the painting. I made this encapsuling effect which brings your attention to the masks. This is to make a contrast but not enough to draw your attention to it. I really wanted the masks to be the main focus here.

Finally, for my last step I added some pixels by using a small wood stick, I dipped it into a variety of similar shades I had used for the creation of the mask and numbers. I strategically stamped theses small squares in places where I thought it would make it stand out a bit. I was going for a pixelated look, which makes you question, as a viewer, if the pandemic was ‘real’ or if we should just move on.