Painting Demonstration 1
Draw your sailboat carefully. This is a relatively loose painting, but a sailboat is recognizable, just like a human face. If the lines are out of proportion, it will be noticable. So start with a very light, but correct drawing. Then loosen it up in the painting!
I begin with a bold wash of ultramarine blue and cobalt blue in all the shadows. I vary the pigments, using more cobalt in the sky and background and more ultramarine in the foreground shadows.I paint the sky very loosely and I don't plan on going back into it much. It's a background, not a focal point so I don't want much texture or interest in the sky.
While this is wet, I drop azo yellow and a few dots of ultramarine into the background trees.
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Painting Demonstration 2
Still working wet, I continue roughly painting the background. It's dried a little bit, so some drybrush texture shows up, some blurs. Exactly right. I use cobalt, ultramarine and cobalt teal for the girders holding the pulley system.
I start painting the darks of the wheels and winches with burnt sienna and ultramarine blue.
Painting Demonstration 3
Now that the painting has dried completely, I can start adding texture. I drybrush some of the rough surfaces on the hull with nickel azo yellow.
Artist Tips
Paint twice as dark as you think you need. It will dry lighter!
Painting Demonstration 4
I'm continuing scrabbling drybrush all over the boat hull. I want a lot of texture under the final layers.
I start the deep shadows of the keel with maroon perylene. This bleeds into the shadow below.
Painting Demonstration 5
After the painting has dried again, I continue layers of drybrush on the hull. Notice how much lighter everything dried!
Leave lots of white paper in the texture on your highlights. Remember to look at the colors that are really there, not just what you think they are.
Always move your brush with the shape of the object you're painting. This is especially noticable in drybrush.
Painting Demonstration 6
After this has dried a little bit, it's time to start the real painting!
The focus of this painting is the beautiful shadows on the sailboat hull. I don't want to paint much detail outside that area. I start some dark ultramarine blue and burnt sienna slashes of shadow on the hull.
I paint the details of the boat deck with a big brush, very dry. I want them to sparkle and haze out.
Painting Demonstration 7
At the very last, I pull out a few details and highlights in white gouache, right out of the tube. I paint the trim line with a rigger, making a few dashes for the Hinckley insignia. The railings lost a little of their sparkle, so I drybrush gouache over them.
To purchase Hinckley Boatyard original watercolor painting, please click!
Hinckley Boatyard Final Watercolor Painting!
I really love how this painting turned out! Sometimes everything just flows and I know it will be a good painting. When it doesn't flow, that's when the most happening is an average painting. But that wonderful feeling I get when it all comes together...
I particularly like how the pulleys are just enough to tell what they are, the girders are just enough. The structure I need to define the painting is there but not distracting.
The shadows on the hull are wet blurs on top of drybrush texture. A lot of depth. Navy is always a very difficult color to paint. Any highlights and it looks purple or green, not rich navy. I took a slightly different approach here than I usually do and it turned out. It's always worth trying something a little different. Only paint and paper, after all!
