The artwork that inspired my painting is called "The Cliff." I originally chose this painting because it's by Claude Monet, one of my favorite artists. I love the way he uses visible brush strokes, creating a landscape that isn't entirely realistic. I also love his use of colors, using many different shades of pastels to create a mystical scene. I wanted to do a landscape based off of the way he reflects light onto water, and I chose a scene from Harry Potter when all the first year students ride boats to the castle of Hogwarts. In this picture, many of the colors are a dark, muted blue that made it look less like a Monet painting, but I used other techniques to make it resemble "The Cliff". Like Monet, I used the light in my painting (from the moonlight and the lanterns) to create reflections across the castle and the water. Monet's brush strokes inspired me to use short, thick brush strokes across the rocks and the water. His use of color inspired me to use a variety of colors on the sky of my painting, giving it a pastel quality even in the night time. The part of the painting I think is the most successful is the sky, because of the brush strokes and the gradient of the colors.