From Work-in-Progress to Completion

Firstly, let me say, that this painting has a very different mood to the one in my previous post.  Working on such a small canvas with this one, everything is pared-down.  Thought I would do this blogpost showing the various stages of the painting,

although....

I forgot to photo the early stages of this painting (I got carried away) so you pick this up when I am starting to lay in some of the blocking-in stage.

(Blocking-in is when you just add colour/tones to initial areas of the piece).

Let me point out that I initially put a base coat of white/burnt sienna over the entire canvas, rather than working straight onto a white surface - that's the "pinkish" tone you see.  It will be covered up eventually.

The canvas is resting in a small pochade box.   The canvas measures approx 

6½ x 5 inches.

Here you see I have filled in the water area, using a mixture of blue/green tones.

Comparing the previous image with this next one, you will see that I have added some cloud highlights, more sea foam and dashes of white in the foreground.

At this point, I stepped away from the painting for a couple of hours.  I knew there was something wrong, but couldn't work out what it was.  The more I looked at it, the more I couldn't see it.  By walking away and doing something else for a while, meant that when I came back to it, I realised immediately the problem.  

Look at the previous image

it seems okay, but I realised that the rocks (the large ones on the right above the half way point) were much too dark.  Because of that, the rocks came forward too much, they needed to recede.  I adjusted the colour and that was it.  

But there was STILL something wrong!  It occurred to me that it was far too "busy" in the upper left hand side, where the clouds meet the sea foam. 

 So I took Out the clouds and made the sky less busy.

I was then able to add a horizon line, which in turn put more emphasis on the crashing wave.

Job done 

This little painting took more work than the seascape in my previous post.  Small isn't always easier, it can get very fiddly by virtue of its size.   Still, I did enjoy the challenge it gave me.

Hope you like it too.