In The Studio: Number 73 of 90 Paintings in 90 Days, “Late Night No Anchorage”

I wasn’t going to post this painting because it really went over the dark cliff but it was a scene late in the evening and it was dark, and that always presents problems to get the darks dark enough and yet still have an interesting painting.  Well I’m not sure about the painting but well they all can’t be the best and my average of quality paintings is about 1 out of 3 and that is probably being generous.  I was happy I painted this since it was all about my father who was an avid sailor and well he would have liked it but he liked everything I painted.  I really enjoy painting skies like this and trying to get that bleed to happen, and that was my first goal in the process.  I ran a strong raw sienna wash and then while it was wet I floated a dark cool grey from the top down, leaving the yellow at the horizon.  I let the sky dry to just damp and then floated another dark cool grey over top let the damp paper pull the water from the wash down and towards the horizon.  Practice this it will create wonderful skies.  Actually one of my core lessons it to ask the painter to do something in every painting that they are uncomfortable with and are fairly confident that it will go wrong.  This will lead you towards great discoveries and wonderful surprises.  Don’t be afraid to try something even if it ruins the painting, it is just paper.Paint the distant land with a dark varied mixture of ultramarine blue, cobalt violet, burnt sienna and olive green keep changing the color each time you touch the paper, and then with the same colors but even darker paint the foreground making an interesting shape with good edges.  Scrape the weeds with a sharp knife and paint some dark violet water marks on the left side of the water.  Paint a raw sienna and cobalt violet mix for the sails,  These sails should be taller and more elegant and really the fore sail should be down, but I really wasn’t thinking of the proportions, but I would definitely critique the painting with the comment that the sails are not the strong suit here.