SAFE HARBOR

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While in Honolulu I took a lot of pictures of the boats in the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor. I did a brief watercolor sketch while we were there (see below) and then did this 24" x 18" painting after we returned.

From the photo I simplified the drawing to reduce the clutter in the background adding several boats and a distant skyline. The photo has a building and some indistinguishable boat parts.

The most difficult step was getting the reflections to look like water, not glass. Light colors reflect darker and dark colors reflect lighter. The water isn't still so the reflections need to be distorted a bit, but not so much that you can't tell what they are. This was trickier than I thought.

I like the colors in this painting and the early morning light coming from the right.

Creek Street Ketchikan

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This photo of Creek Street, Ketchikan, Alaska, was taken by New Zealand photographer Paul Bakker. Creek Street is wooden street built on piers along Ketchikan Creek.

This is a complex composition with a lot of detail including reflections in the water. I started with the background trees then layed in base colors on the buildings. I finished the details of the buildings before dropping paint wet in wet for the water and reflections. I finished the painting by adding a little pen and ink detailing.