Marine Painting

Every time I paint a new marine painting, I'm reminded of why these can be so difficult to do well. Although I had the background for this piece worked out, finding the right resource for the water and the sailboat became a great challenge. I needed to find one where the waves, water, wind and light all worked with the reference photo of the clouds. Basically, I needed three photos. Actually, that's not as many as I used for my large marine piece, "Before the Reef". But still, even with finding photos that worked for all those factors, I was still confronted with the color issue. How to make all these disparate factors come together for a harmonious painting.

I find in these cases the best thing to do is to put it all together on Photoshop, work on getting the light and values to work together and then changing the whole image to black and white. Then I can use what ever colors work best for the piece without being influenced by what I see in a photo. That's what I did here. I may change things a bit later on. I sometimes do. But I think it's OK for now. Anyway, it needs to go in my upcoming show at Gallery 9 in December. Wish me luck.

"Running with the Wind"
17 1/2" x 23 1/2"
Oil on Panel

Marine Painting - Ship on Stormy Sea

Here's the second progress report on my first marine painting with a ship.  I have, of course, lots of photos of this piece in progress but thought better of boring you with too many closeups and small change photos. 

The water is nearly finished although I have made changes to the mid-ground and foreground wave not shown here. Also the sky. 

The ship remains with lots to do.  

Marine Painting of Storm Tossed Ship

Clouds and ocean go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or at least it seems so to me. I've been practicing skyscapes a lot over the past year and with them, I've painted a lot of water as well. So after all this practice, I decided to put it all together and drop a ship into that water. Now despite living on the water, or at least close to it, I don't know much about ships and less about sailing. But I figured I could do a decent job of painting one. So in my typical - "let's just dive right in" attitude, I pulled out the stops and started to paint one.

The elements for this painting were drawn from stock photos. I pulled separate pictures for the sky, mid ground (er, water) and foreground. Then I searched for a masted ship photo that would serve for my subject. Then I put it all together and Photoshopped the color and values until I was satisfied. So here are the first two iterations. The painting is much further along than this now but I want to show how I have been building toward the final image so stay tuned over the next few days.I've skipped a couple of steps in order not to bore you. 

Plein Air Painting of Estuary

"Morning at Salt Creek"
Oil on Linen Boad, 8" x 10"

This Plein Air painting of Salt Creek Estuary was painted on the beautiful Olympic Peninsula. We have it all - from soaring mountains and placid lakes to roaring waterfalls and ocean beaches. I painted this small painting on a summer morning when the air was cool. It heated up quickly and I finished in just under two hours before the sun reached my easel. 

The blues appear quite intense on my screen but are in reality more subdued.

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