Monday 24 July 2017

Sparkling Early Light, Portree Harbour


Oil on Canvas, 18 x 26 inches

We went to the isle of Skye last May, and on several mornings I went down to Portree harbour, where the wonderful weather provided a wealth of painting material, and this is the result of one of those mornings, the obvious hook being that beautiful light bouncing off the water  - just gorgeous!

Painting the smaller boats against the light was reasonably straightforward, but as I always say in my demos, you cannot tell whether the colour and tone you put down initially is right, until you put down the adjacent colour and tone next to it. Similarly in this case, where the colour next to the boats was almost pure Titanium White, it was not easy to judge the boat colours until that light passage was placed next to them. Some adjustment had to be made, so that the boats didn't look 'stuck on', or not really sitting on the water. 

The spots of pure, reflected sunlight were the main problem near the end of the painting. Placing spots of pure white doesn't quite work - theylook like spots of white stuck on, not blinding sunlight sparkles. To achieve the glare, so that the onlooker almost feels he should put sunglasses on, requires a bit of an orange halo placed on the water first, smudged slightly to imitate a star-like flare. Then, when that was tacky (not long, maybe half-an-hour with fast-drying Alkyds), I dabbed on thick, impasto spots of pure Titanium White in the middle of the halos. 

This one is going into the RSMA Exhibition in October.

1 comment:

  1. You've done an amazing job of making that light blinding! Even with your explanation of adding the orange halo first, it is hard to imagine being able to achieve the effect you reached; I want to reach for my sunglasses!

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