Apr 08 2007
Seascape Painting Tips
Painting seascapes and or marine objects such as palm trees or harbor scenes is a lot of fun and can be quite restful and it can be quite exciting - being on location is fairly easy if you use watercolor pencils or pan watercolors (tubes for me mean another pallette to balance and not drop on the ground) - oils, for me anyway, can be used on location (I have done it) but I find them much harder to get all the equipment there when traveling and I felt like I spent all my time getting ready and cleaning up with little time for the actual painting. Once was enough for me to unload & reload a portable easel & paint etc.
Computer laptops for on location digital painting is a luxury I do not have yet but it would be really easy to take one of those on location anywhere in the world if you remember to charge the batteries before the trip and take extra batteries with you too. I don’t work in acrylics so I can only guess they might be fairly similar to tube watercolors and oils in difficulty level for location painting.
Personally, I find the watercolor pencils the very easiest to take on location painting trips - plein air painting or inside at a local shopping mall or the local Denny’s (yes - I took them to breakfast with me and painted while waiting for my food - other customers even noticed and talked to me because of it). You can even take them with you out to dinner if you or your children like to use them. Watercolor pencils are viewed as “magick” from the perspective of a child. That is exactly what my grandson and I call them … my “magick pencils”.
One of the first things I do when painting a seascape is to decide where the horizon line will be - it is important that the horizon line in a seascape painting be straight across. This is important in all paintings but it is CRITICAL “generally” in a seascape painting - especially if you are painting open water with no far off coastal islands or mountains breaking up the from one side of the paper or canvas to the other side. … But … I tend to break this rule sometimes … deliberately … some people like it and some do not …. usually what matters to me when I am painting is if I like it or not and if it says what I have say in this painting. Sometimes I like to do a surrealistic … curvy wavy horizon line … where the sea and the sky merge somewhat together and it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins … sometimes it works really well for me .. other times it does not.
Another important point to remember is to not cut the painting in half or usually even thirds either - the even thirds is workable but it could appear more geometric than you might want it to look when you are done and detract from the focal point unless that is part of your focal point. Yes … I and many others break this rule .. .sometimes it works well .. and other times it is awful. My daughter HATES for me to put my lone tree slicing across the middle third of a painting generally - it bothers her a lot 
… she definitely notices the focal point in it though LOL
Remember to be nice to all the people who stop to talk to you while you are painting on location - they are potential collectors of your art! Take business cards with you to hand out to them. Sell them your painting right then that you are working on - quick sketches make lovely “paintings” in themselves - many of my watercolor pencil preliminary sketches are lovely just as they are and the studio oil or digital painting that I have created from them does not have the same “feel” let alone look. Both are great paintings but very different - both vibrant and alive but the medium used definitely changes the look and feel of a painting.
Now that I have discovered watercolor pencils … I have a small set of 24 watercolor pencils and a watercolor pad (small) that both fit in the side pocket of my car - I keep them there all the time. I have a small spray bottle of water in the cup holder if I want to use it … and I just bought some little cups with lids for taking some water for a brush - it will fit in the cup holder with the spray bottle. One small brush fits in the pencils box - whah - la - I am all set to pull it out and sketch very quickly with no need to worry if I remembered to bring my equipment.
I find that at lunch time, I can go make quick sketches - 10 to 15 minutes is a good sketch activity to get the feel and look or colors or shapes down of something I can see in the area surrounding our building or remembering from my drive to work that morning … sometimes I will see a lovely palm tree on my way to work and do a quick sketch of the shape once I get parked before going inside to start my day.
I’ve also found that it improves my mood for the afternoon to do something for me at lunchtime that I find to be fun and as necessary to my life as breathing or eating. Since I lose so much time to being in Houston traffic .. I was finding it very difficult to include time to just sketch and enjoy nature during the work week … now I can do it just fine at lunch and while I drive to work, I am on the lookout for something I want to include in my sketching activity. I showed my sketchbook to my grandson the other day .. he saw one of my palm trees in it .. “It looks just like a real one Grandma!” He was excited … now I have something to share with him also to encourage him to find time away from video games to draw and paint!
Today’s featured art is Resting in the Bay by Barbara Burns
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