Sailboat and Charts

It's always hard to know when to stop when doing an abstract like this one. I'm doing it for the second time, since the first version contained collages of charts and old maps, something not allowed in many shows because they are not created by me. So this time I used various colors of ink, in addition to the watercolor paint, to draw my own charts and maps. If you look closely, none of the "writing" is real. I will probably work on this a bit more, but it's looking close to being done.

Heeling

I'm still playing with painting sailboats, this time one that's under sail. Fran suggested I do one in reds and blues, so I did. I painted this about a week ago and didn't like it much, so it sat behind another painting. Today when I uncovered it, I liked it much better; it's often like that with paintings I do.

Sailboat, take 3

This is quite a bit bigger than my other two sailboats and it's on illustration board. I found some nautical charts on the internet and painted a couple, one old-looking and one as I remember paper charts from my sailing days. After I glued down a large chunk of chart in the bottom right, I painted the background, leaving the cabin of the boat white. The boat and the compass were drawn first with sepia conté pencil then with a brown magic marker to make them darker. I added paint to the crayon on the hull and for the reflections. Then I cut and tore more of the charts and glued them in places where I thought they'd work in the painting. I'm not sure I'm finished but now I'm going to live with it for a while and see what it (and you) tell me to do.

Sailboat, take 2

I think this is much closer to the image I was thinking of yesterday when I started painting this sailboat in these colors. This time I painted in the background (the diagonals, mostly) then I used a sepia conté pencil for the drawing. I did do the drawing lightly in pencil before I started to I'd know where to leave that white splotch. I think I should crop it higher so the mast doesn't go off the top.

Sailboat in Sepia

I woke up this morning with something like this image in my head. The tough part was finding an appropriate image in all my photos and then doing the drawing. Boats are HARD. This is painted with gold and purple pigments only, mixed in various proportions. I tried to combine looseness and a more precise way of painting.