quiet waters - a commission in oils

the finished artwork

the process

Compositional graphite sketch with major shapes arranged.

The start usually looks pretty awful. By faith, I just keep painting...

Everybody asks about the string... it indicates my horizon. Such a large painting and things are easily skewed.

Changing a color photo to black and white shows the values without seeing so much red.

Some values in distance will be overpainted lighter. Light over dark creates illusion of something receding into the distance. Dark painted over light comes forward visually in the painting.

detail of underpainting of the cliff. I ghosted in a few more wind-swept trees.

This six by eight inch color study isn't precise, but it's kinda fun.

So here is the finished under-painting in red. Time to add local colors over the top (watch for updates).

local color

Here I've added local color and adjusted light to enhance depth and realism. It's still quite red but changing. Notice the sky and seastacks fading into the distance, and the "purple" cast shadow in the foreground.

Quiet Waters completed spring 2021

another ocean scape

Here below is another oil painting "Kalaloch" created in a similar manner.

The underpainting glows in warm tones. I then painted over it allowing some underpainting colors to peek through. This adds a depth and a vibrancy to the sky similar to how our eyes actually see a real sky. Darker colors over light come forward (foreground) and lighter color over dark will look cool and recede (distant clouds). The finished painting is shown below.

kalaloch
oil painting on canvas, 15 x 30 x 1.3 inches, private commission, completed December 2017

This scene of Kalaloch beach is painting on gallery wrapped canvas with painted edges.

Places change over time, and paintings become historical markers. Due to a storm and erosion, this scene has changed a bit. And the river/pond area sometimes fill with drift logs. But it's still beautiful.

gallery view