Heading out of harbour

Moving on

The work carried on in the studio, I would do a little bit one day and then leave it alone for a fortnight. Then go in for another attack... and so on.

Here you see me stating the majority colour in the water area quite early on. I find that it's helpful to get strong colours in early so that you can see how well they will work together. I don't just mean strong in saturation, but also strong as in they will make up a large part of the painting. The blue in the water for example, which is pretty dull in hue but covers a large area and therefore is important.

Getting the lightest values

This was an obvious next step - getting in the highlights and lightest values. I also found I needed to lighten in value the red areas. 

I used a Rembrandt cadmium red light which is a gorgeous colour.

Darkening up the background also brought that red forward, let it have it's limelight!

The figures and background all had further work, and I made those white sails really sharp and opaque.

This is the finished painting...

Heading out of harbour
16" x 20"