My Art in the Making Moolack Shores

Reference Photo

This photo was taken on the Oregon coast near Moolack Creek after a full day of studying the light. I loved the rock structure and the reflective pool of water leading your eye into the distance toward the lighthouse.

STAGE 1 SKETCH AND INITIAL DESIGN

I start with a pencil sketch and go over it with paint to lay in the initial design. I chose burnt sienna for the underpainting in order to give this painting a warm undertone.

STAGE 2 TONING THE CANVAS AND ADDING DARKER VALUES

Next, I tone the whole canvas and start adding Prussian blue to create the darks. These first layers are very thin and transparent. Getting rid of the white of the canvas helps to judge the values that I need to place in next.

STAGE 3 WARM UNDERTONES

Next comes a layer of more opaque colour, which will shine through at the end giving the painting that sunset glow. At this stage I’d call the underpainting finished.

STAGE 4 COLOUR TRANSITIONS

I try to load more than one colour onto the roller to create blended areas and interesting colour variations.

STAGE 5 BRINGING IN THE COOL TONES

Now I am ready to establish extreme dark values in the foreground and add cool tones in the sky and water reflection. I am mixing a bit of the complementaries (yellow ochre and burnt sienna) into the blues in order to create more natural colours.

STAGE 6 LAYERING IN TEXTURE

I am adding cool and warm tones to the sand to create lots of texture and movement in that area. This part of the painting will remain quite abstract and it’s important to add this interest here.

STAGE 7 BRINGING UP THE DETAIL

I’m using a palette knife for the detail areas and rollers for the larger areas. Both tools pick up well on the texture of the canvas and create shimmering effects on the water.

STAGE 8 CREATING DISTANCE

I’ve done a few transparent layers over the background headlands to push them back into the distance and create the illusion of the haze over the horizon. They get lighter the further they are.

STAGE 9 WORKING OUT LARGER AREAS

The large area of sand in the foreground has to be approached carefully, so this is where I spend quite a bit of time to layer texture and create a good balance of cool and warm colour.

STAGE 10 CORRECTIONS

Sometimes I use chalk pastel to make corrections to large shapes. If it doesn’t work, I can simply wash off the pastel and try again.

Moolack Shores, acrylic, 36 x 48" (91 x 122 cm)

Adding a few areas of really dark colour in the foreground and some more highlights in the water for added zing.