4e. Finishing the Painting

Here's a view of where this painting stands now.

Its looking good, but I can see numerous things that need fixing and some unfinished items to take care of.

I have "wiggled in" all the ropes now.

I'm trying to make sure the ropes are in front of, and behind the other reflections.

They don't have to be perfect. In fact, they look more real when they are not. The water's surface does all kinds of distortions to the reflections.

The left building of the background was in need of some warm light, so I did some light glazing over it with some yellow and orange.

I put in some light on the main ropes coming from the smaller boat, stopping just where the light would stop since the dock is throwing a shadow on the lower rope.

I need to add some warm light to the riggings, so I filled my brush with a mixture of yellow, orange, burnt siena and white, and loosely gave some light to all the parts that wouldn't be in shadow.

Just a dab here and a dab there.

While I was at it, I went along some of the wooden parts of the boats and gave them sharper edges where needed.

I had placed some of the roof equipment on the small boat, but haven't tackled the radar yet.

There, the radar has its paint. I put pure white on the spot of all these highlighted areas where the sun would be brightest. Then, blended in some orange and yellow as the light tapered back to the cooler blues and violets.

The large boat still didn't have its roof equipment.

I took care of that with stuff from my imagination. While I was at it, I loosely put on some blue logo type on the radar.

Here are the two boats almost done.

I did some more work on these reflections, and added more light on the ropes.

I have been careful not to overdo the bottom red paint on the black boat, so I increased its intensity to see how it looks. I can always take it back down, but the red is a very important color element in the whole composition. I need to get it right. Each time I increase the intensity, I also have to adjust the reflection.

One of the last things I do on a painting is put in my bird. Most of my paintings, not all, have one lone bird either sitting on a dock or on the upper riggings of a boat. This is a "Laughing Gull," which is very common on the Texas Coast.

I put in a warped reflection of the Gull.

Now its time for my signature, which is what I have used from the beginning. You can see how I stapled the canvas on a crude frame. Once all the paint is dry, which should take about two weeks, it will be rolled up, placed in a shipping tube and be on its way to Florida to be re-stretched and framed.

Here is the final painting. The title is, "Drag-On & The Duzzi."

To me is was a success. It looks like a painting and not a photograph, yet it looks real at the same time. That's what I like.

Next time I have a story to tell about how to build a bar-b-que pit in Costa Rica –– Pura Vida!