Thursday, September 01, 2011

"Into the Wind", 8x8, oil on board, by Maryanne Jacobsen

"Into the Wind", 8x8, oil on board, by Maryanne Jacobsen

I actually never thought that I'd have fun painting boats.

Go figure.

But after seeing all the diversity of boats, (new and old, tourist and workhorse,) up in New England, I became intrigued with the idea of learning to paint boats well. Of, course , that will take some time. But in the meantime, I am practicing with all the photos that I have taken from my trip to Maine and Cape Ann.

This painting was very challenging for me. I'd noticed that I have been putting a predominance of warms in my paintings and am not having enough cools to balance them out. So I gave myself a challenge today. I limited my palette extremely!

Yes, I said extremely!

I had absolutely no oranges on my palette or yellows!

I used the coolest red imaginable (Magenta) as my warmest red, and added a cool red (violet) to balance it out. I added a cool blue (cobalt) and a warm blue (ultramarine), plus a cool green (viridian) and a warm green (cinnabar) and that was all I used! Does anyone have any idea how hard this was for me- a colorist?

That normally has a zillion colors on her palette?

At any rate, I like the fact that the painting looks uniform. That's what I was seeking when I started out. I know I could have really popped those sails with some yellow and oranges, but guess what? I used restraint!

The boat in the painting is some sort of tourist boat that goes out of Bar Harbor on a regular basis. It's really lovely with those maroon sales, and I was happy I was able to catch a photo of it while we were there to use as a reference for my painting!

I decide not to add the flags, because that begged color!

Please send me an email if you are interested in purchasing this painting.





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2 comments:

Janelle Goodwin said...

Thank you for explaining your process, Maryanne. This is a very intriguing painting! I love all the thick, luscious paint.

Paintdancer said...

You're very welcome Janelle. Explaining it, helped me understand it better, too!