Apr 08 2007
The Big Wave
Seascapes are one of my favorite painting subjects. I love the ocean - it is one of the very best perks of living in the Houston Texas area to me - in spite of the heat, humidity and horrendous traffic problems with resulting really long job commutes.
Whether you use your favorite computer paint program, traditional oil paint, traditional tube or pan watercolors, watercolor pencils or perhaps acrylics, seascape painting can take your art to the very next level if you’ve never done it before at all. If you have painted seascapes, if you are like me, you will discover something new about yourself and your art every time you paint a seascape artwork.
I find painting seascapes is just a little different than painting landscapes. Water can be very difficult to make look real in a painting. I have never mastered the “big wave” that so many painters put in their seascape paintings. I’ve asked myself why many times that I find it to be so very difficult for me. I believe part of the answer lies in the fact that here at Galveston beach, the waves are not the large ones such as are found out in California at Malibu or other Pacific or Atlantic Ocean beaches - I saw the waves at Malibu once and they were gloriously large and awesome - but those are not really the type we have here generally. We get large waves during a hurricane yes … but I’m looking for safe ground not planning paintings or taking notes about wave formations at the beach during a hurricane.
I grew up in Iowa and we have ripples in lakes and rivers there but no large waves either. I love to watch the waves at Galveston - they are like dancing across the water … the smaller waves probably have the same formation but much smaller as their larger cousins … I am the problem and the way I “see” them … I see the hills & valleys … I notice the breakage here and there … I see how it appears to be like very large lake ripples. Those patterns fascinate me at the beach - I could watch them forever and never get tired of doing so. I do not notice the big wave formation since that is not what is important to me but the rolling almost but not symmetrical hills and valleys like a just sprouting cornfield - those are what I see and what I just naturally paint without thinking - the waves I have watched are never still enough for me to notice the single wave formation.
I’ve had many compliments on my seascapes … they appear to be moving in the painting … they are hypnotic … they are relaxing … they are angry storm-tossed … but I’ve also been asked many times why I don’t have the big waves?
The few times I was out on a small fishing boat in the Gulf of Mexico … there were no big waves out there … there were the same row movements though that I see from the beach … like ripples in a lake … I could see the shore but it was nowhere close - there was water everywhere and it was a little choppy and windy one of those days … I paint what I “feel” … and what I feel are those water current waves undulating along it’s own path … not the big spectacular waves that are eye-candy in so many seascape paintings.
My best advice is to paint what feels natural to you to paint. If the big waves are for you … paint them … if not, paint the ones that live in your heart and soul - you will be a better painter for listening to yourself and your paint brush. Enjoy! Keep painting. Traditional or Digital - both kinds of painting takes the same skills of composition, involvement and emotional creativity coupled with tool technical expertise no matter what the tools are used in the creation of the painting. Paint brush or Graphic Tablet Pen - those are tools - art is created in our minds and souls and we put it on display in the world using paper, canvas, computer monitor or other art support.
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