Acrylic Safe Harbor: Week 2

This week we started working on the water and on the buildings on the pier. The first thing we need to do is to get the water in because the water will go behind the buildings and behind the boat and we need to put the things that are behind in first so that when we do put the boat in and the buildings they will look like they belong there and not just cut out and stuck on.

Starting at the horizon we need to create a soft blue color we do that by using our ultramarine blue and gesso and run it along the horizon line being mindful that the horizon must be parallel to the top and bottom of the canvas. Any time you have a body of water like a lake or an ocean the water level needs to be parallel to the top and bottom of the canvas so that it looks like its flat if it is angled it will look like its running downhill so be sure that your horizon line is flat work your across your canvas and that your brush strokes are horizontal as you work your way down your canvas.

Using the blue and the white to start you can then add touches of sap green or Hookers Green and the gesso as you work your way down the canvas to about where the top of the boat is going to be then start adding more color and less white continue working down towards the bottom of your canvas adding in more blue, more greens and adding touches of purple, however, if it gets too dark you can add some white it would not hurt if you add other colors into the foreground water, such as burnt sienna, touches of other blues if you have them even, touches of orange or yellow lightly blended in, this is up to you as the artist, just be sure that you blend your colors so that they have no hard lines and there is a gradual transition from the soft gray color in the background to the more intense colors in the foreground, this will suggest there is distance in your painting and when you are doing landscapes or seascapes you need to create the illusion of distance.

Let your water dry. Once you painting is dry then you can sketch on the buildings and the boat if you want to we covered various techniques of getting your sketch on your canvas so look in the sidebar and you will find the pages and go to the one that says transferring your design all you need right now really is the buildings on the dock behind the boat once you have those sketched in you need to choose a color for your buildings.

Your buildings can be any color you want, it’s totally up to you but what you will do is under paint them with a darker version of the final color. For instance, my buildings are going to be red, blue and green so I am under painting with darker versions of the color that I want them to be. For the red building I used burnt sienna and a touch of purple for the shadowed side of the front building, then into that mixture I added orange and a bit of yellow for the sunny side of the building. For the roof I just added some mud that was on my pallet and some white to make a warm gray and I based in the roofs of the buildings. The blue building was under painted with a blue grey and that was my blue with a touch of purple and a little white and the mud on my brush. I then added a little more white to the mix for the lighter side of the building. For the green building I added more purple and some Hooker’s green to blue mixture for the shadowed side and added more white and yellow for the sunny side.

This is where I left off for the week. Please try to get your painting to this point before class and have the basic outline of the boat on your canvas you and have your reference photo of the boat, not the finished watercolor from the picture page. You don't need to have all the netting or masts or pipes sketched in, just the boat and we will start from there be sure to have your reference photos with you because you do need them at this point in the painting. Keep painting and I will see you in class.