 The first 6 of my buoy series (13 total so far) 6"x6" oil on canvas board Painting in a series has a lot of benefits. A series is a body of work that goes together based on certain characteristics of the paintings. A series lets an artist explore a subject or theme and can provide a tool for the artist to hone their artistic voice. A series is also a great way to introduce your work to a gallery, it makes a bigger statement than a group of unrelated paintings. I've often used series for small works holiday shows, where they especially shine.
Mini landscapes 1, 2, 4, 7, 15, 16 - 4"x4" oil on treated paper What makes a group of paintings a series? For me it's usually medium, subject, and size. In terms of subject, I've done series of floating buoys, top views of dinghies, and on a broader scale, a series of mini landscapes. I also frame all the paintings in a series with the same frame.
Dinghies 4-9 - 5"x7" oil on panel I've learned a few things in the process. Most importantly, don't try to batch process creating the pieces, at least not at first. I leaned this with the dinghies. If you're going to create a series, do at least two pieces start to finish before you begin the rest. There may be something about your design or process that needs tweaking and you'll only figure that out by actually finishing a couple of pieces. I ended up changing some of the colors of the dinghy paintings, and adding the shadows on the water. If I'd though of that earlier, I might have not centered the boats on the canvas.  Dinghy 4 Three Ways The life of Dinghy 4 is an example of some of the changes that I made as I went along. First, I'd used the green background on several of the boats, but it didn't read as water. Second the orange interior just didn't look right. That's a bit weird since it is a popular color for the insides of classic wooden skiffs. Maybe the green seats were the problem. One of the interesting experiences I've had with these three series is their popularity. I'm not sure if it's the subject matter, that there's a choice of colors, the fact that these aren't very large and neither is the price tag, or it's something else. The dinghies and landscape series all sold out. Only 2 of the buoys have not been sold. If you'd like to see all of the paintings in the three series go HERE.
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Buoy 5 - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (finished on the left, value under painting on the right) What's the most important thing to do well when creating a painting or an art photograph? Some people will say color, some will say drawing, some will say mood, and some subject matter. All those things are important, but what really matters most is composition.
Buoy 7 - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (finished on the left, value under painting on the right) What is composition? It's not just a drawing. The shapes that are created and how dark or light they are (value in art speak) is what's important. I like to think of the composition as the arrangement and value of interlocking shapes on the canvas (or paper). This works for both representational and abstract art. In representational art, the composition is with the painter throughout the process. That's not required in abstract painting though it does have to appear at some point, even in intuitive abstract painting.
Churchy at Low Tide - 8"x8" oil on canvas board (finished right, value under painting on the left) In landscape painting, we often create what we call a value under painting, or value roadmap to help us keep the composition in mind as we paint. It's also common to create several initial value sketches to choose the most compelling composition. These value sketches can take the place of the value under painting when time is of the essence, as it usually is in plein air painting.
Winslow Park - 6"x6" oil on canvas board (value sketch left, finished painting right) Above, I used makers to create the different values, usually 3 to 5 values are needed.
Near Rasteau - 8"x8" oil on canvas board (value sketch left, finished painting right) In this example I used a pen and hatching to create the different values. It's also common to use a soft pencil to create a value sketch, often called a thumbnail sketch to emphasize that detail is not the most important thing. I may have gone a bit far that direction on this last one! If you want to try this for yourself, take a photo of a painting and turn it black and white on your phone. It will be easier to see the composition that way than when it's in color.  Two minute sketch of the village of Gordes in Provence (Tombo marker) Sketching quickly is both fun and skill building. If I don't have time to paint, sketching is the best way to keep my painting skills from getting rusty, since it's used at the beginning of the process. I did the sketch above while my companions in the car were taking photos. You might ask what's a sketch? To me, it's a very quick drawing, using a single drawing tool, where mistakes are left in, there's no erasing. The purpose is to catch the essence of something in minimal time, especially if that something is moving.  Quick sketch of two women knitting (Tombo marker) There are so many fun things to sketch. I particularly like to sketch people. It's more enjoyable to sketch them live than from a photo. But you have to either have their permission, or do it surreptitiously. I do the later a lot in airports or on a beach where people are absorbed in a book or sunbathing. In the above page from my small sketchbook, I got a chance to sketch my friends at Knit Night. We talked, they knitted, and I sketched. My sketching is much better than my knitting.  Less than Minute sketches of a sailboat swinging on it's mooring (Micron pen) If we've met, you probably know that I love boats. They're right up there with people on my fun to sketch list. And I don't need their permission. When they're moored they tend to move around, which is a challenge but also a good learning experience. Drawing and painting boats from photos has the problem of foreshortening. The end of the boat that is farthest away tends to appear even smaller in a photo (especially from a phone camera) than it is in real life. So being able to get a quick sketch in to use with a photo for detail is very helpful when creating a painting.  30 second pen sketch of a flying pelican Birds are also fun and you have to be very quick to capture them in a sketch. I particularly like pelicans because they are so angular. And cormorants drying their wings sitting on a buoy are interesting to draw. I'll look out for one when we're next on our boat.  Trees are great to sketch in winter, when all the branches are showing. And they don't move very fast if the wind isn't blowing. This post on my old blog called Drawing Trees has long been the most popular, and I'm not sure why. I would call this more of a drawing than a sketch. It probably took 10 minutes.
 White Dinghy Bow - 5"x7" oil on canvas panel Drawing boats can be challenging on a number of fronts; getting the basic shape, making your boat float, and building believable reflections. A simple way to draw your boat uses a figure eight. Read through this post and you'll be able to see the figure 8 in the boat above. Drawing Your Boat  The diagram above demonstrates drawing a boat using a figure 8. The figure 8 becomes the gunnels of the boat. The gunnels (or gunwales) are the tops of the boat's sides. Step 1: Draw a figure 8 as in the diagram. Note that the right hand orb of the ellipse is smaller then the left orb. We'll make the smaller orb the bow. Step 2: From the highest point on the right orb, draw a line down and to the left to create the bow, and another line down and to the right to create the stern. These lines can be somewhat curved as in the diagram or straight depending on the kind of boat you want to draw. Step 3: Draw a line to connect the bow and stern. And connect the right side of the bow to the bottom of the boat. Step 4: Erase the line that is dotted in the figure, which is not visible. Step 5. If the boat has a square stern, draw a line across the back of the left side of the figure. If the boat has a square bow, follow the same process. Floating Your Boat 
To make a boat look like it's floating we need to understand the water line, which is the line that marks where the top of the water hits the boat. The waterline is flat (horizontal) if the boat is at eye level, as is the waterline of the blue lobster boat in the top photo above. Note that this is true even though we're looking at both the stern and side of the blue boat. If you've seen a boat in a painting that looks like it's going up hill, it's because this was not understood. As you begin to look down on the boat more, it moves off the horizontal as in the photo on the bottom left. The more you can see of the inside of the boat, the less horizontal it will be in your painting. In the photo on the bottom right, where we're looking directly down on the boat, you can only see the inside, the waterline is not visible. Note also that the figure 8 approach works best when we can see part, but not all, of the inside of the boat. In the bottom two photos where we can see almost all of the inside of the boats it's not as helpful.  Blue Green Abstract - 5"x7" acrylic on paper I’ve painted in a number of mediums: oils, gouache, water color, and pastels. But when I’ve used acrylics, I haven’t been excited with the results. Until recently. What made the difference? Realizing that they aren’t oil paints.
Red Sailboat Boothbay - 6"x6" oil on canvas left, acrylic on paper right Last fall I took a painting class that wasn’t about a specific medium or painting techniques. It was about finding joy in your work, with painting as the work. Louis Fletcher, the teacher, believes that when you’re struggling the work shows it. And when you’re enjoying yourself, and you love the results, your unique style comes out. I love this idea and will return to it in another post.  Boats drawn from figure 8's - acrylic on paper I decided to do Louise’s exercises in acrylics because I wanted to avoid using solvents inside the house when it’s too cold to open the windows. But I was still thinking about acrylics as oil paints with water as the solvent. And I think that was what was getting in my way in my acrylic painting. I wasn’t treating it like a new medium, with different possibilities.  More figure 8 boats - acrylic on paper While the class had demonstrations in multiple mediums, there were lots in acrylics, and I was able to learn about layering and the benefits of a fast drying medium. And there was so much experimenting! It’s been fun to see what I can do with these paints. In these dinghy paintings, I painted over colorful backgrounds made using up extra paint from previous paintings I love the added depth and texture. For how to draw Figure 8 boats, look here.  Great Island Dinghy - 8"x10" acrylic on paper I’m sure there are analogies to my experience with acrylics in other areas, like moving from a camera to the one on your phone, using a new material in construction, or cooking with a new gadget. We need to let go of the old ways, and what we know, and spend some time exploring the potential of the new material or gear. And learning from others via YouTube, a class, or a generous friend, can be a big help.
 Nature's Grace - 5"x7" oil on panel, with knife Sometime back the Boston Globe posted an article on how the interior-design world has turned against the color gray. How do you feel about that? Are you done with gray walls? Or maybe done with gray period? We’ve never had gray walls in our house, ours are mostly white or off white to allow for lots of light and flexibility in hanging paintings.  Isle-au-Haut Rocks - 5"x8" oil on treated paper And while I’m glad to see the departure of gray walls, I find the colors of gray useful in painting. I say the colors, because gray comes with lots of variations: blue gray, purple gray, red gray, green gray, etc. Since I paint with a limited palette and no black, my grays often lean towards one or other color. These grays and their neutral brown counterparts are useful in balancing the bright colors that I like to paint with.  Bucks Harbor Lobster Boat - watercolor on paper ~ 3.5"x5" Sometimes there’s an object in my painting that is well, actually gray. Like this lobster boat that I enjoyed painting from the wheelhouse of our boat when we were moored nearby.  Sittin in the Sun - 4"x5" gouache on paper And often there’s already a lot of color in a painting, so some neutral gray is a good supporting actor while the bright color takes center stage. In Sittin in the Sun, the chair the woman is lounging in gives us that contrast. And note the blue gray of her shadow on the sand.  Downtown Monhegan - 8"x10" oil on canvas panel The neutral grays and browns in the buildings in Downtown Monhegan provide a place to rest our eyes from the bright color of the trees, sky, and the sunlit side of the building on the right side of the painting.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we do need grays in paintings, to offset the story we want to tell in brilliant bold color. But a little goes a long way, and I won’t be painting any walls that color any time soon. Enjoy the color (and the grays) in your life!  Buoys - 12"x12" oil on canvas When a painting catches your eye from across the room, it may well be the bright colors that have attracted your attention. But I believe once you walk over and take a good look, it’s a solid composition that will keep your attention. A composition is more than a line drawing, it’s about shapes, how they fit together, and their values (how dark and light they are).  Delivering the Catch - 9"x12" oil on canvas panel What does composition do for the painting? A good composition will let your eyes move around in the painting, discovering more as you go. It neither pulls your eye outside the painting or lets it get stuck anywhere inside the painting. What makes a composition interesting? Asymmetry! It turns out that our brains like asymmetry. That’s why you see design pundits recommending an odd number of objects in a still life, and an uneven spacing of objects as well. The rule of thirds in landscape painting comes from this (more about that later).  Summer Marsh - 8"x10" oil, knife, on panel see below for photo cropping options How does the painter create a solid composition? When composing, whether from life or from a photo, we pay attention to a few guidelines like those above, and when we break them, we do it consciously and make up for it in some other way. For example, in general, placing an object smack dab in the middle of a painting isn’t a great idea. But if the area around the object can have lots of asymmetry, all is still well. Shadows in still life paintings are great for this.  Pears in Blue - 6"x6" oil on canvas panel the asymmetry of the shadows make up for the two objects placed in the center What a focal points? That’s a term we hear a lot. A focal point occurs when there is a sharp (not blended) edge that has a strong contrast of light and dark on either side. The truth is, there will almost always be at least one focal point in any photograph or painting, and likely more than one. The trick is to place them where you want them and not let them be stoppers for the eye.
Two crops of the same image showing the horizon 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the bottom - applying the rule of thirds What tools do artists use to create a good composition? For a still life, we can arrange the objects and the point of view (whether looking straight at the objects, or down or up at them) as we like. We are composing in the creation of the set up. For landscapes, the rule of thirds, which recommends placing the horizon and focal points a third of the way from the edges of the painting, is helpful. Cropping, whether painting outside or from a photo is key. I recommend not doing it with your camera, because you limit your options later when actually in front of the canvas.
Simple perspective applied to the exterior and interior of a house Perspective is also part of composition, it’s what lets us place a three dimensional scene onto a two dimensional surface like paper or canvas. Basic perspective isn’t hard to understand, and will take you a long way.
Thumbnail composition options for a poinsettia painting The most useful tool when composing is the thumbnail sketch. That approach with a pencil or markers, and three or four values, lets you try out your design quickly, before committing in paint. It’s a good idea to try two or three options for any painting. And it's an idea that I don’t always follow, leading to many lessons learned!
 A Clean Glass - 6"x6" oil on panel We’ve all probably made some New Year’s resolutions over the years. My favorite is to learn more about wine, and I make that resolution every year. But beyond that one, I prefer to focus on opportunities rather than resolutions.  Marsh From the Bridge - 8"x10" oil on panel Final Assignment in my Beginner Oil Painting Class I’m almost always up for opportunities to learn something new. And there are so many ways to learn these days. We can take in-person classes or live Zoom classes in everything from fitness to painting to playing a musical instrument. There are also self-paced online classes and YouTube videos. Teaching with Zoom has been a great addition to my practice. It means that people who don't live nearby can join my classes. I've made some wonderful new friends with this expanded audience. Demo of rocks from one of my live zoom classes in 2023 There are so many learning opportunities available to each of us. From hobbies to personal growth, fitness, sports, and jobs, I can't count them all. And they are more accessible than ever. Perhaps we have pandemic ingenuity to thank for that. I teach painting both online and in person. Online, I have self-paced classes in addition to live Zoom classes. I restrict those to 6 students at a time, so that everyone gets personal attention. And I also teach plein air workshops in person. My students have particularly enjoyed those in Yarmouth, Monhegan Island, and Provence.  Visan Vineyard - 8"x10" oil on panel - final demo from my plein air workshop in Provence - I've been thinking about the opportunities I'd like to take advantage of this year. What do you want to learn? I’d love to hear about it.  Snow on the River 12"x12" oil on canvas I'm not much of a winter plein air painter, but I do love snow scenes. What intrigues me is all the different colors of snow. Yes, there's some white, but there is sooo much else. The starting point for Snow on the River was a photo I took in Fairfield, CT. I used it as a framework to explore shades of blue and purple.  Icy Brook 8"x10" oil on canvas panel Icy Brook was also painted from a photo, taken with some risk since the bridge over the brook was pretty icy, and I had to dodge the cars driving by. Below I've included the photo, so you can see that it was really only a jumping off point for the composition, the colors and positioning of the grasses and shadows are all mine.  Icy Brook Photo I did have an opportunity to paint snow from life at our previous house. We had a bit of lawn behind the house and then some nice trees. The french doors and the screened porch both gave me a sheltered location to paint from.  Backyard Snow 6"x6" oil on canvas panel I've painted this same backyard snow several times, in oils and in water color. We don't get as much snow here on Buzzards' Bay, but I'm on the lookout for opportunities to paint snow from life in my new neighborhood.  Thomas Point 6"x6" oil on canvas panel Sometimes simple is best, and that's what I found with Thomas Point, a photo taken by my painter friend, Joelle Feldman. It's one of my favorite snow paintings ever.
 Abstracted Exercise #2 - acrylic on paper My paintings are mostly realistic. They aren’t photorealism, because they don't look like photos. They're just a little abstracted, in the sense that I simplify. I’d love to get some other kinds of abstraction into my paintings, and I’d also like to learn to paint with acrylics. To these ends I’ve been taking an interesting painting course online with British artist, Louise Fletcher. And I’ve made a lot of progress with acrylics. It’s great to be able to use them indoors without having to worry about the ventilation that is needed for oil paints.  First Step in Creating 4 Abstract Exercises (note the masking tape)  Completed Exercises (note the tape has been removed) In order to learn different ways of abstracting I decided to take the class as if I was an abstract painter. The paintings here are some of the results.  Abstract Exercise #3 - acrylic on paper I've enjoyed using different tools to make marks, not just brushes and knives. I tried an old credit card, a crumpled tissue, and a Princeton Catalyst wedge, among other things. And I loved removing paint by scratching and scraping.  Abstract Exercise #4 - acrylic on paper It’s also fun to hear things that you have a lot of experience with from a completely different perspective. For me this was values, color, and composition. There is always more to learn! My next step is to experiment with these techniques and approaches in my landscape paintings. Once I’ve understood that, I can move on to abstracted boats.
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AuthorBobbi - Painter. Sketcher. Teacher. Boat and Dog Lover. Archives
March 2025
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