I chose the song “Addict with a Pen” by Twenty One Pilots in my lyrical paint. I expressed it by making a painting of a desert with canyons and arches as my focal imagery with an abstract pattern of gold. Above the desert is a mixture of blue and purple to represent water. These images represent some of the main lyrics of the song that are about being stuck in the desert without a drop of water. Layering the paint was initially difficult because I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted it to go in. I spent several days just using several different washes of random color and experimenting, which wasn’t bad, but it may have wasted time in the long run because when I finally got a vision of what I wanted my painting to look like it was nearly the end of the project. However, my artwork definitely evolved from start to finish from several washes of colors to what it is now. I had a day of only cool colors, then one day of only warm colors. Initially I was going to split the painting up in half with desert on the bottom and water on the top. This worked, but I wasn’t satisfied with the quality of my “desert”, so I added more realism and several rock features that made it much better. I also added lyrics by scratching away at wet paint and by adding lyrics in white paint. The emotions that I’m trying to evoke through my painting are ones that are evoked by the song. I want it to be emotional, longing, thirsty almost, but with tons of color and life that isn’t really expected. I added a metaphor that wasn’t found in the song by putting gold in the desert/underneath my painting of the desert to show that there is life found in the driest of places. I hope that my painting can be both powerful, emotional, and aesthetically pleasing.