Freighter Inviken-Step 6

The final phase of the painting is a matter of going back and refining areas as needed.   The clouds are softened a little and white highlights are added to indicated the direction of the sunlight filtering through them.  The trees and bridge are painted in and if you look close, you will see a tiny tractor-trailer truck at mid-span.  Small details are added over the superstructure of the ship and the hull is embellished to make it look powerful.  I add layers of colour over the small waves and reflect the sunlight with an impressionistic application of white highlights.

The last thing I do is add my signature to the lower right hand corner.  This last image is a professional scan of the finished painting and is a better representation of the true colours in the painting.  As I work, I take digital photos on my easel where the light is not as balanced as it should be, so the initial images can be less acurate.

I wanted to create a painting that suggests power and industry, while at the same time indicating the power and majesty of the natural world.  When I finished, I was pleased with this result.  The painting measures 16 inches high by 20 inches wide, painted on stretched canvas.  If you are interested in purchasing this original work of art or a fine art print on archival paper or canvas, please visit my website at www.richarddewolfe.com.

Freighter Inviken-Step 5

It is finally time to start blocking in the ship itself.  This is a complex shape with many small details.  I take my time, painting in sections simply and as clearly as I can.  The mass of the hull is mostly black with only slight suggestions of form and contour at the rear and away from the sunlight.  On the right side of the ship, where the light is strong, I try to suggest heavy steel plates that are streaked with rust.

The superstructure of the freighter is much more complicated and each area requires careful consideration.  I keep the surfaces that are away from the sunlight cool and subdued and begin playing up the surfaces that face the sun.  This creates the center of interest in the painting.  Everything is now more or less in place and working together.

Freighter Inviken-Step 4

I begin blocking in the clouds now.  I start with the darks, establishing the weight and mass of the cumulus formations.  When I placed the general cloud masses in the sky, I drew them in perspective,  going from large shapes in the foreground above the ship and progressively getting smaller as you look further back and down towards the distant horizon.

Now I begin refining the darks in the clouds and adding mid tones to soften and mold these areas.  I work progressively lighter, leaving the brightest highlights until last.  Now I have established the general look of the sky, with only the ship itself to be blocked in.  The overall look of the painting is beginning to make me want to get back out on the water myself!

Freighter Inviken-Step 3

I continue to build simple colours in the water, the headlands and the bridge that is back near the horizon.  Already the ship seems to be sitting on the surface of the water and moving towards the bridge.

I add more detail to the trees and then spend more time building subtle colour shifts in the surface of the water.  Each wave is a separate surface.  Each of these surfaces is concave in shape, so light is reflecting off of them in a multitude of angles and intensities.  Everything is in continuous motion, so I find the best way to paint water is to recreate the impression it gives you rather than trying to sort out specific details.  I work over this surface a number of times, occasionally adding a thin glaze with one colour to unify everything if it gets too busy.

Freighter Inviken-Step 2

Now I create a tonal image on the canvas, using progressively darker mixtures of my ground colour.  This gives me a feel for the tonal balance in the painting.  In other words, I can assess where the lights and darks will fall and what sort of positive/negative design this will create in the finished work.

Now it is time to switch from acrylic paint to alkyd.  I usually block in the sky first, working from dark to light and distance to forground throughout the painting.  I have painted the sky a darker shade towards the zenith and becoming progressively lighter towards the horizon.  I also keep the sky lighter on the side towards the light of the sun and darker on the opposite side.  As you can see by the light side of the ship, the sunlight will be on the right side of the painting.  I avoid getting to fussy or detailed at this stage.

Freighter Inviken

It is the beginning of boating season here in the Thousand Islands area on the St. Lawrence River.  I love the water and boating, and soon I will be launching my own craft once again.  The St. Lawrence Seaway has been open to shipping for several months now and will remain open until late autumn, alllowing ships from all over the world to reach ports all around the Great Lakes, deep in the interior of Canada and the United States .

This is a freighter from Europe that I saw several years ago as it was approaching the Thousand Island Bridge, between the U.S. mianland and Wellesley Island, N.Y.  I loved the powerful mass of the ship, rising off of the water like some displaced, highrise architecture.  I found the persepective leading to the arch span of the bridge in the distance to be an interesting design that appealed to me.  The rolling clouds overhead seemed to enforce the energy and power of the massive ship churning upstream to Toronto, Detroit  and perhaps  many ports beyond.

Once I had worked out the composition to my satisfaction, I transferred the drawing to a 16" X 20" stretched canvas.  The next step was to spray the drawing with fixative to prevent smearing when I started to paint.

After fixing the canvas, I applied a mixture of matt medium, burnt umber and cadmium red, to create a warm, earthy ground.  This acrylic mixture is mostly matt medium to maintain a high degree of transparency so that my pencil drawing remains very visible.  The warm colours will be complimentary to the cool blues of this waterscape.  At this stage I am always eager to see some local colours applied to this ground.

Across the Miles - Step 6

The most satisfying part of creating a new painting, (especially one that is a product of your imagination) is seeing it all come together as a credible scene.  This is the way I picture mail delivery 100 years ago, when the majority of people lived in rural settings.  Actually, it is not so different from what I remember when I was growing up in rural Ontario.  The main difference was the mailman drove a VW Beetle rather than a horse and sleigh.  Other than that, this was a daily occurrence at our house.

I have completed the rail fence and then added some wild shrubbery in the foreground to lead the eye into the picture to start the viewer's journey around the canvas.  Tweaking things here and there and painting the gifts in the mailbox complete the picture.

The signature goes on and the painting is finished.  This last image is closer to the actual colours in the painting.  The previous images were shot in my studio with the painting on the easel, without balanced lighting.  This image is a professional scan of the finished painting.