WIP - Boat

This is a couple of painting sessions' worth of paint. I am liking the progress. It is exciting to see the places I need to adjust. I feel like I'm getting somewhere when I get to that point. For example, I knew there was something fishy about the front of the boat- behind the scaffolding. The shape needs to cut in at a very slight curve, rather than bulge out a little the way it does. And the shadows in the foreground...

I am seriously debating on whether or not I should put the shadows on the foreground back the way they are in the photo. I like how these work as far as composition goes, but I've been wondering if my tampering with the direction of these shadows will confuse the light source all together. I think it does, because when I look at this painting there is a little ball of confusion bouncing around in my mind trying to fix on something specific.

I know people say you can do whatever you want in a painting, artistic license and all, but really you can't - that is, if you want to make the painting plausible. I mean, the lighting is like the soul of a painting in some ways. Or one of the basic rules in physics. If you try to bend the rules, things just don't work.

Ever look at a painting and something looks a little wrong but you can't really say why? Odds are someone fudged the lighting in one spot and did not adjust everything else to fit. Like I did with the foreground shadows. Tsk-tsk!

I didn't realize when I drew the painting out how much of a problem that would be, but it has been bugging me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but the closer I get to that part of the painting, the more irritating those shadows become. Honestly, I don't think I would have fully realized that the problem lay in those shadows if I hadn't started writing about it today.

I gotta tell ya, this blog has been one of the best tools I have ever had! I enjoy posting my work and writing about it, so I find myself painting more so I can post more. I enjoy having a record of what I have done and when it was painted, and just writing about what I am doing helps me solve any issues I come across.

Hurray for the blog!