Ship to Shore

Welcome back! I feel like many of you liked to see more of what goes on behind the scenes so I've tried to think ahead for you so I can share a bit more with each post. We've got a fairly complicated scene here that I would really like to take further into a watercolor painting. But before I do that, I like to try and solve as many problems digitally because the 'undo' function allows me to try out lots of different ideas without actually having to commit and it's a fun place to explore and make changes.

I started off with a sketch that I had made earlier in the day. I try to go out on field trips every so often to collect cool looking scenes that I like and snap pictures for use later. In the morning I'll start the day off with lots of loose little sketches, super small, I think this one was about 2"x3". Just for fun really and if I think I like something I'll take it further.

Next step for me is to try and see what the overall composition is. I try to simplify everything into the biggest shapes I can find and make sure that everything has good separation of value and is easily readable from a distance. From lots of studying old master paintings and art heroes I've found that the 'simple statement' is king. Even when there are a lot of elements in your painting, if you can push all of the complication into tight value ranges it will be easier on the eye to enjoy.

After a bit of pushing and pulling and adding things this is the grey scale version of the finished painting. As you can see I've tried really hard to keep the values close to my original grey block in plan. At some point I decided I wanted this painting to be about the boat so I did my best to make it stand out by keeping the other things in the scene more muted in color and value range.

I'm pretty excited about how this one turned out and I really love the foggy mist and the stillness of it so I'll be trying it out in watercolor next. I hope this process is helpful to see broken down, there's a whole lot of trial and error behind every painting. It's super helpful for me to work digitally first so I can play with the painting and stay loose in the beginning. How do you stay engaged during projects that take many turns?