Sailboat Painting Demonstration

[@bgastein]

Very nice demo. I enjoyed the narrative as well. Thank you.

[@ScottRuthvenFineArt]

I’m glad to hear that! Thank you.

[@bgastein]

Thanks for a great video! I appreciate being able to see the palate, photo reference, and the canvas. Your narrative is very good as well! You are skilled at putting in the correct values. Wish I could do that. Thank you for sharing this top notch video!

[@ScottRuthvenFineArt]

You are so welcome! As for values, the more you paint the more you will begin to see the world in terms of value relationships. A fun exercise the next time you see a beautiful scene you would like to paint is to paint it mentally by asking yourself questions about the relative values. Such as, "is the blue of the sky darker than the shadow side of the cloud?", is the shadow side of the cloud darker than the light side of the tree?, is the ground plane lighter or darker than the light on the clouds?, by how much?". This boost your observational skills and you build a relative value mapping. Good luck!

[@maria-doloresvazquez-abad4221]

Another great demonstration/tutorial. I love painting boats and water (from photos, mostly). You did a great job with matching tones and hues (as usual); the light through the sails and the movement of water with that theatrical cloud is fantastic. [Note: you painted with cadmium, cobalt colors and flake white and then used your finger to smooth some edges (around 1:02). These metals, especially lead (flake white) are toxic: please be careful and wear loves or wash right after so lead does not get absorbed through the skin]. I wonder why you did not start with transparent darks first but went for the focal point from the start.

[@ScottRuthvenFineArt]

Hi Maria, thank you for your nice comments. I especially appreciate your genuine concern for my health! You are absolutely correct about the hazards of cadmiums and lead. Actually, I use Gamblin’s Flake White Replacement, which is lead-free. Nevertheless, the cadmiums are indeed cadmiums and I am good about washing my hands and usually wear gloves. As for your question about not starting with transparent darks, I really didn’t see any in my photo reference and knew it would be most important to establish the effect of the light glowing through the sail first so I could build the rest of the painting to support that. I also find that by starting with the transparent darks I sometimes end up with a painting that’s too dark. So, I save that approach for subjects that have more darks.

[@sharronboxenbaum7392]

Beautiful demo and painting. Question; should the water to the right of the boat be lighter as the sun looks like it’s hitting the water to the right of the cloud.?

[@ScottRuthvenFineArt]

Hi Sharron, I’m glad you enjoyed the demo. I certainly could have lightened up the water a bit more as you mention, but chose to just put a few highlights on the waves at the angle of the sun so the water wouldn’t compete too much with the boat for attention. In reality, though you are right, the water would be lighter closer to the sun. Thanks for your comment!