According to Peter Atkins, there are only nine big ideas in chemistry. In my artwork, I successfully managed to incorporate five of them. The first idea present is that matter is made of atoms. This idea is at the base of chemistry, so it is a must in this artwork. In all of my drawings, atoms can be seen and, hopefully, recognized. However, I used different atomic models to represent this idea. I also used the Rutherford-Bohr model. Rutherford stated that electrons are particles that spiral around the nucleus, and Bohr went on to add that electrons can only have discrete quantities of energies on each orbital preventing them from spiraling into the nucleus. Next, I drew a similar model, but the only difference, besides the colors used, is that the electrons are waves. This is de Broglie’s model. Lastly, despite being an older model, I drew Dalton’s model, which shows atoms as just spheres.

To incorporate periodicity, another big idea, I combined it with Dalton’s model. In fact, when I made three different spheres, I wrote the elements’ symbols inside. The three that I chose are lithium (Li), fluorine (F), and francium (Fr). According to the periodic trend, an atom’s size tends to increase as you go down a family and decrease as you go across a period. That being said, I made fluorine the smallest, francium the biggest, and lithium smaller than francium but bigger than fluorine.

The third big idea in my artwork is that chemical bonds form when electrons pair. The molecule I chose was nitrogen dioxide (NO₂). I drew the Lewis structure of one of the resonance structures of NO₂ since the double bond between nitrogen and oxygen is delocalized. It is also interesting to know that NO₂ is a free radical because the nitrogen atom has an unpaired electron. This makes the gas very reactive since the unpaired electron has the potential to bond.

Molecular structure is the fourth big idea, which can also be found in my artwork. Molecular structure is a crucial feature because it affects the chemical properties of a molecule. I chose to represent the molecular structure for ammonia (NH₃) using the VSEPR (valence shell electron-pair repulsion) model and the localized electron model. Ammonia is a trigonal pyramidal molecule with a bond angle of 107°. It does not have the same angle as a tetrahedral even though nitrogen (the central atom) has four domains because of its lone pair of electrons, which require more room. In addition, the hybridization of nitrogen in NH₃ is sp³. One of these orbitals contains a lone pair, while the other three make a sigma (σ) bond with each of the three hydrogen atoms.

The last idea present in my artwork is intermolecular forces. I chose water (H₂O), a polar molecule, because there is a very strong force between water molecules called hydrogen bonding. This type of force only happens when there is the attraction between hydrogen from one molecule and one of the three most electronegative elements of the periodic table, which are fluorine, oxygen, and nitrogen in the other molecule. For H₂O, the hydrogen bonding occurs between oxygen and hydrogen from different molecules. Since oxygen is more electronegative (3.5) than hydrogen (2.1), oxygen will have a partial negative charge (δ^-), while hydrogen will have a partial positive charge (δ⁺). Because of the strong intermolecular forces, water is a liquid under normal conditions, and its boiling point is quite high at 100 °C since its molecules want to stay together.

What I wanted people to understand through my artwork is that science and art are connected despite popular belief that separates the two into two completely different entities. The inspiration for my artwork came from Andy Warhol and pop art. I used similar colors as he did in the attempt to capture the viewer’s attention. I then proceeded to break down each image I created into four pieces. The pieces that have the same color for a background were part of the same image initially. Afterwards, I arranged these pieces randomly on my canvas, giving my artwork an abstract aspect. I did this because I believe imagination is primordial in art. By breaking up the images, I am forcing the viewer to imagine how the pieces would look like if they were placed together. Also, I think it represents science as well because in science, you are given a vast knowledge on a subject, and it is up to you to piece all the information together to fully understand it. After all, the project did challenge us to join art and science together.