3f. Finishing "Three Boats at Night"

As a reminder, these are the reference photos I took for the painting I will finish today.

Another boat blocked my view, so I had to make up the rest. 

I decided to challenge myself to a night scene.

Here are my corrections to the light on the rigging. I also intensified the light on the building nearest to the light source. 

I left in the secondary light on the boat rigging. I think it adds a little interest without taking away from the dominate light source. Doing this allowed me to put in the rusty color of the metal pipes in the rigging. I imagined this as a low intensity light so it had little effect on the other lighting.

I added in the golden highlights on the reflection of the rigging on the water. I also added in little golden highlights on the tops of the waves in the foreground. Light tends to bounce around on moving water and this will add to the realistic movement. and wetness.

At this point, I started working in a lot of little things for the finished piece. I brought down the cables from the rigging to the bow of each boat. You can see now that I painted in the orange throw ring on the side of the left boat. I toned it down so it didn't become too important.

I went into some of the reflections and made them more crisp. Remembering that the reflection  is just a tad darker than the object, I made some adjustments for that as well. You can see on on the bow of this little boat as it reflects into the water.

I also went along some of the highlights on the objects and added some thin bright lines to intensify the light. A little here and a little there.

When you look at the photo above and compare it to the one below, you will see that at the last minute I added in the black band around the hull to match the ones of the other boats. Not all of them have it, but most do. The little boat looked funny without it.

And this is where I ended the work on this piece. I placed my signature at the bottom right corner. Its hard to take a perfect photo with my current setup, but this pretty much shows it.

This has been a challenging painting for me, but I'm pleased with how it turned out. As I mentioned before, I had started this one several years ago and just came back to it. I'm tying up loose ends I guess. It has taken about three weeks to complete it, giving it a little drying time here and there. It feels good to complete a painting and have it leave. I rarely keep any of them for myself.  I like for others to enjoy my work because that's why I paint!

The painting is now on its way back to my son's gallery in Texas. My daughter, son-in-law and some of their friends visited us this week. Cam offered to take it back to Texas with him, along with my last painting, "Fishing Trips in Port Aransas." This saves a lot of hassle with shipping. Thanks Cam!

So, I unstretched them and rolled them up in a PVC tube for the trip. Once my son, Robby, restretches them they will be hanging in the Felder Gallery in Port Aransas, Texas for viewing (www.feldergallery.com). If you've been following my blog, you might enjoy seeing the work in person if you are in the area.

Now, I'm off to start another painting. It will be the first time I have blogged on a piece truly from start to finish. I think you will be surprised at this new one.

The beach this morning is overcast. I can hear thunder in the distance. Costa Rica is about to enter its "rainy season," which typically is from April through November. I'm glad it waited until the kids were gone. We've been a little hot and dry the past few weeks. Looking forward to everything greening up down here in the Tropics.