Steps in My Boat Painting in Oil

Yesterday, I started a more involved painting than usual. My friend in Denver, lets me use his photos for painting ideas. He had a great photo of these longboats in Mystic, CT. I am going to share with you the way I attacked it. It's not finished...I have a lot more to do. Getting ready for a show in mid November. Stay tuned for the finished piece...

I began this one on a 16" x 20" tinted canvas. I used cadmium red and red oxide acrylic paint. Next I roughly sketched in the objects with a white charcoal pencil. Next, I began to find the areas that were the darkest darks in large shapes.
I am excited about this one, as I have never done a water scene in oil paint. I added the outline of the boats and worked on the rock wall in the back of the painting, and added the lightest colors, to help me see where I was going. I couldn't wait to get going on the water. What fun!Filling in some more water reflection colors, noticing I had the waterline a little skewed.
Almost to a stopping point today, as I add more midtones to the boat insides and decide to take out some of the detail on the dock.

Every part of the painting is filled in with oil paint now. I will begin to refine and revisit area of dark and light in an effort to "pop" them out. I love the way it's going, a really fun subject! Just so you know, every painting I do, goes a little differently. There are no rules that I follow, except working dark, then midtones or local color and add the lights when I need to see where I am going. I do try to follow a little lesson I learned about darks, midtones and lights. Check back for that!