Painting the Atlantic

A few summers back, I was with my mom at Schoodic Point in Downeast Maine. We were on a mission to do a watercolor painting en plein air. In honor of the recent mother's day, I decided to post a picture of this watercolor I did that day on our trip.

Painting ocean or lake water with the medium watercolor can be tricky. You don't want to reveal too much with a solid line, but I always do feel like I need to indicate some darker tones so the paint reads as the texture of the water's surface. My method for painting the water was to use a rather pale wash of ultramarine blue, with a darker prussian blue added in the background to establish a more definite line for the horizon. Once the ultramarine dried, I overlaid a few more saturated layers on top. After that, I was able to use a small filbert paintbrush to add in some choppier, horizontal lines to show some perspective.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Kites

Image
Down by the Berkeley Marina at Cesar Chavez Park there are always people flying kites. Here are two that seemed to be traveling through a wind moving with great determination. 
Read more

Shrinking House

Short Fiction: I came across an elderly man at the local sandwich store. He had swollen ankles and thin gray hair. His skin was white like paper, with the occasional splotch on his face. I made eye contact with him and smiled somewhat kindly, motioning for him to come sit at my table. He didn’t smile but nodded and came over. I asked him if he lived around here, and he said he lived off of MacArthur Boulevard, near the cross section of High Street. I knew this area well. I took casual carpool every day at that corner, and had been to a dinner recently at a house just down the street. Anyways, I asked the elderly man what his name was. He said “Harold” and I introduced myself. He asked me what I did, and I told him I worked as a carpenter at a lumberyard in the hills. He could tell I hated it. I explained to him it wasn't working with metal that bothered me, but the boss and how he treated his workers. Regardless, Harold listened. He told me he enjoyed taking photographs and had t...
Read more

Recent Visual Art III

Image
"Ya heard?" watercolor still-life on cotton rag paper. 9x12 Here's the set-up for the watercolor still life above. Hardest part was painting the green dinosaur with the medium watercolor which can be oh so fluid. 
Read more