I took this photo near Greenbury Point in one of the coves down there and found this adorable house boat which was hand built. The colors of the boat, the flowers, the water and the flag all attracted me to want to paint this.
Here's how I started:
Make sure you have your colors mixed before you wet the paper. I wet the whole background except for the mast, the flag and the boat. I wet the bottom of the boat. Then made 2 mixes of thalo blue and ultramarine blue. One with more water and one with less water (stronger). Then I made a mix of an olive green color for the upper part of the water with ultramarine blue and yellow ochre (M. Graham brand). Then with the lighter mix of blue I painted the sky down to the horizon line and then started with the olive green and then worked down with the stronger blue, through the bottom of the boat. When it was slightly drying, I pulled off the paint in a downward stroke with a flat brush from the bottom part of the boat. Make sure you start out with a wet brush that you take the excess water off with a paper towel so it's dry and then pull it down on the paper. Keep wiping off the excess water from the brush. I also pulled off some paint with a sideward motion to make horizontal light in the water under the boat. Next when all that dries, I painted the bottom of the boat with a mix of ultramarine turquoise and quinacridone violet (both Daniel Smith). Then, taking the same blue I used for the sky, I painted the shadowed areas of the boat. You can see there are only a few areas I left white. Make sure the rim of the boat stays white.
After all that dries I started the trees in the background. I did this wet on dry. The colors I used were: sap green (M. Graham), yellow ochre, ultramarine blue, quinacridone violet and winsor red. I made 3 values of color. I mixed yellow ochre with sap green to make a light green, I used just sap green alone, then I mixed a darker value with sap green, ultramarine and a little winsor red. Now I have 3 values....a light, mid tone and dark. I started painting in the upper left corner with the lighter green. Into many of these greens I dropped in other colors like yellow ochre, quinacridone violet or a little winsor red wherever I saw those colors in the photo. Be careful to leave some of the sky holes so the blue sky shows through. Also I added tree trunks and some branches while wet. Don't worry if it bleeds into the greens...that's a good think. Not all the trunks should be hard edged. I used ultramarine blue and burnt sienna with some quinacridone violet for the trunks. I moved in sections at a time, putting all the colors of values in the first section (about a 4" section starting on the left) and moving to the right. Don't add too many dark values yet, but I did put in some as I moved to the right side. I avoided painting the grasses behind the boat. Then I painted the windows of the boat. I used the same dark as the bottom of the boat for the 2 right windows. I added a darker shadow at the top. The two very far left windows I painted with the olive green from the water behind it. The third window I painted yellow ochre with some raw sienna in it and I dropped some burnt sienna onto the top with a touch of ultramarine blue in it to darken it a bit. If you look at the photo, it is darker at the top.
Next I painted a yellow glaze over the body of the boat with a light wash of yellow ochre. I also dropped in a bit of quinacridone rose to parts of it. I painted it over some of the door moldings and over the window moldings with the yellow ochre. I gave the outer rim of the boat a little bit of it in some parts....not everywhere. I gave the left end of the boat a light glaze of it but very light.
I waited for all that to dry before I added more of the details on the boat. Next move on to the water. I started under the boat by adding the shadows the same color as the bottom part of the boat. Then I dropped in a bit of olive green to it where I saw the color changing. As you move out to the left the shadow color gets more olive green. I added touches of thalo blue to it. Also added quinacridone violet where I saw it. Squiggle the brush around to create these shadows in the water, don't try to be too careful! The looser the better and try to use a good amount of water!
Painting the back part of the water, I glazed over it with some thalo blue and dropping in more of the olive green. Also dropped in quinacridone violet. After it's dry you can pull out some of the highlights/reflections from the grasses and pilings with a semi wet brush. After that I glazed over the back grasses with a thin yellow ochre. When that dried I masked out the tops of the grasses just dabbing randomly. When the background is dry now add the darker darks. You can put those in and then soften some areas so not all edges are hard. I also dropped some other colors into those darks. When painting the grasses/dead branches on the right I did some negative painting loosely. When that is dry I added the darks to those grasses and added some olive green into it also. The dark I used was the same I used on the tree trunks.
Getting back to the details on the boat, I added some yellow ochre and raw sienna on the wood trim. I added a bright yellow highlight on some areas along the edge near the long windows. I used yellow ochre with a touch of a brighter yellow. I painted the flowers with quinacridone violet for the ones on the left but wet them first and kept the very tops unpainted to show a highlight. I used the dark from the tree trunks with a little ultramarine blue in it to add the shadow underneath the pink flowers. When that dried I did the more golden flowers. I used quinacridone gold with some perinone orange in it. I used burnt sienna for the shadow areas. When that dried I did the container using burnt sienna with some ultramarine blue in it and a touch of winsor red.
There are dark stripes at the top of the bottom of the boat and at the base. I used a darker version of the boat color.
I painted the flag using just ultramarine for the blue area and winsor red for the stripes. Later I used a razor blade to pick out a few of the stars.
I also used a razor blade to put in the lines coming from the mast, scraping them carefully and not too hard. I also scraped out the little canopy and the line coming from the buoy. I painted the buoy with a black paint.
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