3e. Adding Light and more reflections.

Looking for Drama here!

Now it is time to start lighting the objects in front of the light.You can see here how I am going around and adding a light yellow highlight to all the boat rigging.

I am not being very particular on these. I like the roughness of how the light is broken up. There are many shadows on the rigging created by other parts of the rigging. So, the light comes and goes along the surfaces. As I was painting, I noticed a few areas where I have the wrong thing in front of another thing. I will go back and do all these corrections later.

I am also considering keeping the light attached to the rigging at the left of this photo as a secondary light. I had put it in originally and have been looking at it while I paint. The rust colored objects near it are lighted from both sides. 

I think I will keep it and give it a little more emphasis. This type of light will make the objects nearby show their real colors. I'll add those in later and see if I like the effect. Two light sources can be tricky. If it doesn't look right I will go back to just one source.

It was fun bringing the light between these boats. I had envisioned the light on the bow of this little boat to give it importance in the composition. Each boat must carry its own weight in this 3-boat design. They each have a part to play.

The right side of the composition is there to stop the light. The posts do just that. The viewer's attention goes there, and gets bounced back into the scene. The flat lighted deck gives a powerful spot for the eye to rest on the way back.

Notice the black ropes. They are at an angle that emphasizes the angle of the light source. The ropes, as well as the shadows on the posts parallel the metal pipe above.

Now, I want to start adding in the light on the third boat over. Its the only boat that gets lighted from the side in the scene, so it will provide a very important reflection below. I am adding the same color (yellowish white) on this as I used in the highlights elsewhere. I am careful not to paint it on too thickly because I want some of that blue color to come through to add texture.

Done with that. Now I'm off to work on the reflections below the boats.

I went ahead and put the golden reflection in below the cabin light I had just done. Reflected light is just a little darker than the object. I like to add in some orange and ochre color into the lighter color when doing this type of reflection.

So, this is what I have now.

I've been waiting for the time when I can add the reflections in from the boats rigging in back. Most of the rigging is too far back to show in the reflection. But, some are tall enough to make it. I start by just looking up and down between the water and background making sure I am in the right spot for each reflection of the rigging.

Using my flat brush, I make back and forth movements as I take the shape down. That also creates a variety of widths, which is a physical property of a reflection.

While I am doing these shapes, I am seeing other things that need some attention. So, while I'm thinking about them, I might grab some other colors on my palette and take care of them. Here, I noticed that the reflection of the fascia of the roof needed a darker color. It was too much like the color of the object and wasn't working.

I also darkened areas of the reflection that needed it. Where blacks had not dried dark enough, I added more pure black over them. Reflections need contrast and black is key. If I have overdone the black, i can always paint lighter back in.

Now, I start dragging paint horizontally across the reflections. I have to add these slight waves that connects with the lower waves, but in perspective. I will add paint back over some of these shapes so its not so messy in places.

Here are the reflected shapes before I started the transition.

Here it is after dragging paint strokes across the reflections. You can also see here that I started adding in highlights and other shapes to the waves.

A closeup of these waves show the different brush strokes. Between each of these dark wave shadows are smaller shapes and waves. This is where the reflections start to work. The lightest reflections are what make the water look wet.

You can see how the reflections from the rigging seem to jump around the wave action.

Now I will have to come back to those black riggings and add the yellow highlights.

I'm not that far away from finishing this one. I'll add more light in the riggings, particularly the secondary light, add the golden reflections to the rigging reflections and I think I might put some reflection of the metal building in that little space on the right side. Then, I will go over the riggings, adding in some details and fixing things that are wrong.  

I am reaching a point where I can stand back and give some long looks at this painting to see what stands out as needed some attention. Stay tuned...