Enjoyed doing this painting today. Dappled light is always tricky - more so across striped, curved objects. What's makes them so tricky is that they have a variety of edges and very complex shapes. You can see I've simplified the shapes somewhat but tried to maintain the idea of the shapes getting thinner and more vertical as they recede to the stern, whilst also getting slightly darker.

Painting the dappled light is a 3 stage process...
I painted the shadow colour first, with a few holes left for the bigger light patches, and then painted the lights in using a slightly darker version first which I used to establish the variety of soft edges. Then I painted a lighter version in the centre of those light shapes. That was the blue part. Then I did the same process with all the different colours striped along the hull, trying to line them up with the light blue patches. Tricky! But can you do it!?

After all that I decided to really simplify the background to show off my hard work in the foreground.

Cameras really struggle with dappled light because they tend to make the lights too light and the darks too dark so you lose a lot of colour. Plein air wins again!

Funny, I went there because I'd seen this boat in flat light which appealed to me because it was so simple, but when the sun comes out it's so very hard to ignore.

Good luck with your next dappled light subject!

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Comment by Andras Kalmar on October 8, 2016 at 10:21

I love this, I know the owner of the boat, he sailed it over from Scotland a while back.

Comment by Chris on February 7, 2015 at 12:10
Oh Richard, I admire your work so very much. Xx
Comment by Dorian Aronson on January 5, 2015 at 21:42

Dear Richard

Oh how lovely, seem as if I cannot keep up with you.  Great to see all of your new paintings, you are doing a tremendous amount "playing in paint"!  Hugs and Smiles ;-)

Comment by issa on December 13, 2014 at 12:34

I love your colors Richard

Comment by George on December 13, 2014 at 4:56

Beautiful colors and brushstrokes!

Another art class oil painting demonstration?

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