Dorys - Great photo - where to start

I have a photo I want to use for a painting. I love the old boat on the left but I don't know whether to include the yellow boats or maybe paint them a subdued colour. The reflections nearer the beach are beautiful and I want to incorporate them as well but I am stumped with the composition.

It is definitely a great photo. I agree the old boat is really interesting., but I also love the reflections of the bows of the wo yellow ones. Maybe they could be anchored further back closer to the rocks so you wouldn't lose the reflections of the boats on shore and maintain the stronger reflections of the two yello ones. I think I would subdue their color, color a little though so the old boat can remain the main focus.

On second thought, I like the balance of the three boats. If they are moved back, you have a large unexciting area of water where they were.

Good Luck.

Judy

I like the colour of the yellow boats - they add that splash of colour that would bring the painting out of the ordinary, and are balanced by the yellow boat and red boat in the background. If I were to leave anything out it would be that wooden structure on the right.

I'm with Sofie on this one regarding the boats and the wooden structure.

I’m with the others I like the three boats, I would paint them the yellow but that’s just me you can play around with that. I would loose most everything else or at least make them very soft and truly in the back ground

[img]https://watersolubleoils.forumotion.com/works-in-progress-f7/[/img]I took out the pier at the right and changed the colour on one of the Dory's to try

That feels very good.

Judy

I think changing the color really makes it work - good solution! I'm with Judy on the reflections, they really add interest, if you just removed the boats you'd lose that. The only thing I would change now is the boats on the shore. If you removed the grey one and brought the red and yellow boats over to the right, you could bring those colors into into the water in the upper right area (where there's a pretty strong vertical reflection already), then the reflected colors could ripple down towards the front end of the blue boat, completing the diagonal path from the bottom corner of the dock through the boats, to the reflection - which would break up the horizontals running off the right edge to take your eye down to the boat reflections and back around.
Can't wait to watch this come along!

Wonderful suggestions. Thank you all. I am working on glazing the water in my winter scene painting so instead of sitting there watching paint dry, I thought I would start another.

Can anyone recommend a good link on steps to glazing lovelt water for depth using MSO?

There's not a lot of glazing demos out there, or if there are, they're not easy to find. Here's one artist that has a technique similar to what I like to do for water (not really a traditional glazing method):

http://www.kenbushe.co.uk/html/methods.html

Scroll down to his Mill Pond painting, where he (briefly) describes his process.

I get good effects and depth with mixing wet-on-wet and glazing. Start with thin paint and wash in the colors, shadows, reflections, wipe out the lightest areas. Start building up the colors etc with another layer of paint to define the reflections, ripples. Let the white of the canvas show through in the lightest areas. Let this dry, then use glazes to deepen the shadow areas and soften the reflections. You can either do separate glazing layers, letting each dry before the next, or paint your glazes wet-into-wet (works well for water). Of course your lightest lights (and thicker paint) come last.

I wasn't sure about painting wet-into-wet for glazes. Walnut oil? I haven't used it yet - I just have another W&N medium

Any medium that gives you fluid, translucent paint will do. Choose an alkyd medium if you want to speed up the drying time, otherwise; linseed, walnut, etc...are just fine.
Here's a thread about mediums:

https://watersolubleoils.forumotion.com/water-soluble-oils-f5/what-mediums-if-any-do-you-use-with-ws-oils-t90.htm

If you've got an old painting (that didn't work out), experiment with what you have - try it with some transparent colors (alizarin cr., vir. green, indian yellow...) and see how it works.

Dale, I like your conversion. I think it effectively picks up the colors in the background boats.

I have never understood what alkyd was.

Was awake at 4am and up at 5 am the other morning and couldn't sleep so I sketched this out on the canvas.

Step 1
Using a grid, I had sketched the basic layout on canvas - 12 x 16 with charcoal. After watching a video about putting the focal point in the "sweet spot" then buidling the rest of the painting around it, I realized I wanted to move the large dory further in. I used acrylics - charcoal and creme colour to block in the shapes in the new layout. I found using acrylic underpainting to make the biggest change in my painting lately. It forces me to see the composition and value ahead of time right on the canvas. I am too impatient for thumbnails right now.

Step 2
After the acrylics dried, I wiped a glaze of burnt umber over all and runned out the focal area so not to lose it.

You're off to a great start - love the look of your under-painting. I got 2 tubes of Golden Opens (unbleached titanium and raw umber) to try some acrylic under-painting with. The burnt umber over it is very nice - you've inspired me!

Can't wait to see your progress on this!

Very nice start. I like where you've put your focal area. I'm looking forward to seeing how you develop this.

This is going to be great to watch! Looking wonderful! Thank you for sharing your process.

worked on this for a few hours tonight as I am busy for the next few nights.

I probably made all sorts of technical errors but that's the nice things about oils. i can always put a gull flying in front. Sorry it is blurry.

It's looking real good. It is always fascinasting towatch a painyig take shape and color.
Judy

Good progress! Can't wait to see the next update.

When I saw your post on 7 Feb I thought Wow, extremely powerful. You might have weakened it by retaining the third dory which takes the eye out of the picture. Perhaps it might be best to have water only there with reflections then you would have the main attraction and the secondary attraction contained between the jetty and the water.
Hope you don't mind.
Jack

Hi Jack,

I don't mind at all. I had changed the third dory to a suble colour to avoid that pull out of the picture but maybe I need to take it out completely. I really do appreciate the feedback and other's expertise.
dale

I think its coming along great! My view on the composition is that its working. I have read that having an uneven number makes for a better composition. For example 3 instead of 2. I think that maybe toning down the third boat on the right some more might be a good idea but I think its really too early to tell. One thing that you might consider is adding a bright red accent on the boat on shore. I'm looking forward to seeing your next update.

Why not paint two smaller versions of the big fella, using him as a model.