Twilight Upon Rockpile

The overcast day was going to allow me to select some different colors for the painting.

Painting the same location repeatedly has become an exercise that has allowed me to speed up my painting. The familiarity with the composition has sped up the decision making.  This "automatic" painting has eliminated a lot of the problem solving and allowed me to focus on my application rate.

I am still doing a certain amount of drawing in my initial stages.  The drawing has calmed down some and there is more shape creating which is heading in the right direction.

Changes in the light and changes in the tide made it necessary to commit to a particular moment in the sea scape.  I thought the beauty of the scene got better and better as the day progressed.  This made it difficult to not change the entire painting.  I loved the detail of the rocks that were revealed by the tide going out.  The clouds had burned off bringing Rockpile alive with color.

This photo captures the essence of the composition.  I moved the trees around a bit to open up the view to Rockpile.

As you can see there is a lot more blocking in than in my earlier efforts.

The finish of the blocking in of the painting.  My goal is to get to this point as quickly as possible.  My previous efforts have taken too much time to get to this point.  The key will be to be able to eliminate the drawing and put down these shapes from the very beginning.

From this point on, the focus is on defining the various shapes within the composition.  Comparing the values, colors, while maintaining consistency in my representation of the light on the landscape becomes my focus at this point in the painting.

Here I have changed the shapes of the trees and the rocks by carving into them with the blue water.

The tide keeps going out and the sun keeps peeking out from the clouds.

At this point in the painting I am working to get the same level of development throughout the painting.  I am also working at insuring the consistency of light throughout the painting.

As the sun set the water lit up.  This was a good opportunity to create a stronger contrast between the ocean and the palm trees.  Everyone says not to chase the light; but this was the best light of the day.  As a pastel painter it was very easy to add the last touches at the very last moment.

Some of my next steps will be to develop more sophisticated brush strokes, a fuller richer color development, and smoother application.

As I was cleaning up, I took a picture of my easel from a distance.  I like getting a different perspective on what my painting looks like from distance.  

The finished painting.  Twilight Upon Rockpile 24x32 plein air oil on board.

The value shot.  This is a better representation of the values.  In a  couple of my Rockpile paintings the palm trees did not stand out enough against the water.  The sun sinking lit the ocean up and made the contrast much easier to represent.

The detail shot.