Fishing boats in harbour

These fishing boats were tied up at the dock in the lovely Italian island, Procida

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Comment by Jessica Futerman on March 2, 2016 at 10:43: Did some more work on this little painting; I think it's better - thanks to good advice! I tried to paint a larger version following Michael's excellent lesson, but wasn't skilful enough to accomplish it! If anyone else wants to use my photo & paint this scene, please feel welcome to do so!

Comment by Jessica Futerman on March 2, 2016 at 10:39

Comment by Jessica Futerman on February 17, 2016 at 5:18: Thank you Maria!

Comment by Maria Woolrich on February 16, 2016 at 21:39: Very nice Jessica. I look forward to seeing your revised painting.

Comment by Jessica Futerman on February 16, 2016 at 18:50: That's an excellent lesson, Michael, indeed! Thanks very much for taking the time to give all these well thought-out suggestions. I'll work on this with a bigger canvas & see how it comes out, using the palette you suggest. It is more challenging than I expected, but will be a good learning exercise I hope!

Comment by Silvana M Albano on February 16, 2016 at 7:26: Wow Michael!!! Super!!!! I bet your lesson went excellently the other day! Did it?

Comment by Michael J. Severin on February 16, 2016 at 7:05: Hi Jessica. That is a great photo and beautiful scene .... it will make a great painting. Since you are going to paint the mood of an overcast day, may I suggest that you change your palette to a more subdued one by using a limited palette of yellow ocher, raw sienna, any earth red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, and maybe Ivory Black ..although optional on that one. Tone your canvas with an imprimatura of UB and Burnt Sienna at about a value 5. The photo shows the values of the background and foreground pretty close ...make sure you have a value difference between the two. On the photo, the edges are all SHARP ... of course, you will not do that. Note the water is blue/gray and the reflections of the boats are a dull green. There is a dull gray/green reflection of the land mass upon the water and reflections of the building on the left .. note the nice little color shape in the reflection on the left corner. I do not see any vivid primary colors in your photo ..that is why I suggested you leave them off of your palette ... Your sky should glow ..try this: first paint a warm white color over the whole sky ... a very light yellow/orange (white, yellow ocher, and a little crimson) ... I emphasize ..make it very light. Then, paint into that the gray/blues of the clouds ..letting a lot of that light show through ..it will glow. Keep that pile of sky color .. both the light and the gray/blues .... you can use them to tint your background colors instead of using white paint ...put your atmosphere colors to work. Your background hills will be a mixtures of raw sienna, UB ... tinted with your atmosphere colors ..bend it more to the cool side in the distance, and then warm it up as you come over to the left ..which is closer to us ..BUT ..still cooler then your foreground objects. Figure out where your lightest light, your darkest dark is going to be ..and put those in now ...every other value will go between those two extremes. Save the hardest edges, the most intense color, and the most detail, for the focal point. That means to leave all that detail in the background building out. I would suggest that you first try a 5 value notan sketch ..as Jon had suggested .. the 5 values would be: dark, mid dark, mid value (5), mid light, and light. Then do a black and white study. Doing this first will make you concentrate on the proper value relationships with having to deal with color. Make sure you do not follow the values that this photo is showing ... there would be a value shift on that hill as you go from left to right toward the tip way out there in the distance .. the photo does not show that. This photo shows a lot of neutral colors .. the most vivid of these is the yellowish cabin of the second boat ... maybe your focal point? ..that is where MY eyes go. I kind of like that little boat out there behind the first boat ...There is also a small boat down there at the far end ... maybe that should be put in ..in would give you 5 boats (an odd number) instead of 4 ...but I am just speculating out loud on that one. Anyway, that is how I would tackle this photo ...if you feel that you cannot do without your vivid primaries, then just be sure to mute your colors with compliments. Okay, good luck and looking forward to seeing you resolve this painting!!! :))

Comment by Jessica Futerman on February 15, 2016 at 21:18: P.S. I have a lot of photos from this beautiful harbour, some taken when the sun peeked out from behind the clouds - it was a partly overcast/rainy day - would like to learn how to paint this sort of scene better, so really appreciate everyone's feedback here - thanks!!

Comment by Jessica Futerman on February 15, 2016 at 21:16

Comment by Jessica Futerman on February 15, 2016 at 20:45: Hi everyone, Candi, it's 8 x 10", and Silvana, it's true what you say - when this is viewed full size, it looks worse than it does in reality! Everyone is right about it needing more work & I've already softened the horizon & some background edges & it's an improvement. Michael, so sorry your comments were lost & thanks very much for taking the time to write a critique! Am going over this painting again taking everyone's comments into account. I think it might be worth doing a larger painting - in fact, maybe I'll post the original photo here so you can see what I've already changed to attempt to improve the composition. In such a small format, there was much too much detail in the original scene, but in a larger painting, I think more could be added without it becoming confusing.

Another thing - I think it's time to invest in some better brushes! Quite difficult getting precise brush strokes with the ones I'm using....especially on a small canvas....! Great excuse, right?!