I sent two large paintings home to the Felder Gallery last month. I have two commissions ahead of me now, but the second one is still in the planning stage. Somehow I have become known on the Texas coast for my harbor scenes with water reflections and that is what my client has asked for. Over the past seven years I have painted and sold close to a hundred harbor scenes. Thinking still of the old adage, "practice makes perfect," I have another to tackle and plan on having fun in the process.
Living in Costa Rica presents some interesting challenges for an oil painter, not that I am complaining. After all, I do live in what many people would consider "paradise." I am so used to just going into my studio back in the States and pulling stretcher bars from my stash and getting started. Well, I have no stash of stretcher bars here, so I move to "plan B" and have to build my own out of wood from a Ferreteria (hardware/lumber store).
It's okay because these stretcher bars don't have to be perfect. This commission will end up hanging in a Florida home, so I will take it off the stretcher bars and roll it up for shipping in a tube anyway. Lumber here is not uniform. The local stock comes from the small mountain saw mills and the thickness varies. Once the painting is dry I will roll it up and use 4" PVC drain pipe with end caps for my shipping tube.
An additional problem is that electronic equipment is hard to keep working here. Lots of moisture in the tropical air tends to ruin everything. Its best to keep equipment turned on to generate heat inside, or cover them with plastic when not in use.
I don't know if my computer printer suffered this fate or not. It was old to start with. But, regardless of the reason, it died a couple of weeks ago and refuses to print. The old HP lasted many years and gave me some great images to paint. I knew I would need a new printer at some point anyway because I was not finding the ink cartridges I needed for it in any of the stores I checked. I have to do a lot more research before buying one here. One store sells the printers, but not the ink, so you have to research to see if you can even get the ink here before you purchase.
So for now I will have to go beg a friend to use his printer for this current piece, since it is a harbor scene with lots of detail and I use the printer to create these.
Here is the photo I took several years ago that I will be using as reference. I believe this photo was taken from a boat one early morning coming out of South Cove Harbor with my friends, Jed, Marie and John. We were beginning a great day of fishing in Aransas Bay near Rockport, Texas and I had my camera ready.
You just can't beat the warm early morning sun combined with the lack of wind to get great reflections. Taking photos from a boat is best. I took several as we drove by and I liked this one the most.
The composition is perfect for me. Two boats, one in front of the other. Just enough showing of the second one. The central objects in the scene form a triangular shape. I will remove the utility poles on the left of the scene as I think they conflict with the rigging of the boats. You eye keeps going back and forth between them, and I want you to look at the central subject matter first.
I could get rid of the buildings on the left as well in order to put in water on the horizon, but then I would lose the building's dark reflections on the water. I think those dark reflections help frame the reflections in the middle of the composition. I might be able to slip a bit of the horizon between the building and the little white boat. I'll see...
Here is a close-up crop of the image showing the two boats. I think the white one's name is, "Best Shot," but I'm not sure. It is unusual to paint a name on this part of one of these boats. I should know as I have photographed and painted so many.
The black boat's name is, "My Girl's." I'm not sure if the owner meant for the name to be possessive, like it is "his girl's boat" or something. Or, if the boat is just named after his girls. Doesn't really matter anyway. There is a story there, so I think I will leave it as it is.
The name on the white boat is bothering me though. I don't like it.......so I won't put it in. Some boats don't even have a name on them. I prefer the simplicity of one boat name and have titled the painting, "My Girl's." I also plan on cleaning up the white hull a bit too. Its just a little too banged up for me.
You can tell by this closeup that this photo is not very high rez. It was taken when I had a lower rez camera than I use now. Many of my old shots have this issue. So, when I enlarge it the details will be a bit soft. I can fix this when I paint, but I wish I had a photo that had more crispness to it.
This painting will be 60" x 36" when completed. I have already enlarged the Photoshop file and placed it into Adobe inDesign so I can print it out tiled. It will take a few days to get my drawing done, prepare the canvas and transfer the drawing to the canvas. I will report back on this piece once I start painting.
Meanwhile, "Pura Vida" from Costa Rica!
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