A Decision on My Problematic Sea Painting

It's been fascinating reading people's comments and suggestions on my troublesome seascape (the one with the problems arising from a lack of planning). These have ranged from adding more cliff across the foreground to adding a distant ship or a seagull... but I think I've come up with a solution that'll work for me and fit with my vision for the painting as being relatively minimalist in terms of its elements.

Alan suggested a composition in which there was a lot more cliff, going as far as to email me an altered version of my painting. He said: "Excuse my presumption, I’ve played with your seascape for a few seconds... The result is a tad less jarring compositionally and gives a better 'feel' for size and/or perspective.

I found this intriguing because when I started the painting, I had the rocks extending right across the canvas. But the perspective was more like someone standing on a cliff looking down onto rocks and waves (or a sea gull's eye view), as there wasn't any horizon or sky, nor cliffs.

What are the Possibilities:
PeterJ said: "I know I can play around with a choppy sea for ages! ... I think there are many possibilities here. For example more light and shadow in the foreground with some more definition to the crevices. The rocks create a sense of proportion here and the eye follows the headland out to sea.

That bit of blue looks like the farthest cliff that can be lighter in tone. Maybe it needs a small focus like a distant gray cargo ship making its way across the horizon, or not! Maybe add a solitary seagull. Anyway, I hope you do not throw it away! Put it on the back burner as they say."

While the painting hadn't been developing smoothly, I'm unlikely to throw it away, or destroy it by painting over it. I rarely do that without having mulled over the painting. Rather, I put the offending painting up on an easel in view so I see it regularly through the day. That keeps my subconscious muttering away at it, and then eventually I have another go at it.

Getting Too Dark in Tone:
Gerald said: "At the horizon, it that a ribbon of land ? I think your horizon is a little darker than it should... the sky should be lighter to my liking (almost white), at least near the horizon. This would counterbalance the white in the water near the cliffs, and could apply also near the cliff (a little like a halo) if you want it to cut sharp between the cliff and the sky. If the horizon is not land than your light is falling too sharply.

"I often use lead white like a veil to kill the intensity of my colours and help my aerial perspective at the end of my paintings. If the water is too dark at the horizon it kills the atmospheric perspective. And beware about keeping your values on level (a niveau) otherwise the water looks like swelling at mid distance."

Gerald's very right about the differences in values not working across the whole painting. Again it's a symptom of changing my mind while I was working but not following through with a change across the whole painting.

What's the Subject of the Painting?
Paintbrusher said: "There's too much of nothing... It is uninteresting. Take away a third of the painting (ocean side), remove the redundancy of the rocks before the cliff, put in one or two interesting projections (just rocks varying in size or possibly a vessel caught or broken, fish trap or person waving for help on the rocks, etc.,) ...

"The cliff draws the eye immediately to the right of the painting because of it's enormity and color distracting from all else to the left. Something has got to go because half of the painting is negative space. Draw a line from top right corner to bottom left corner to see what I mean.

There is indeed a whole lot of nothing going on in this painting; that's one of my aims, to have the sea colors be the subject of the painting, not to clutter it up with other things. But the cliffs are demanding too much attention, so I'm going to trim their height, making it more of a rocky shore, and also lighten their tone, as if there was a lot of sea spray on it. Then reassess the balance.

More on Painting the Sea:
• Observing the Sea with an Artist's Eye
• Sea Painting Demonstration: Breaking Wave
• Acrylic Step-by-Step Seascape Demo
• Pastel Step-by-Step Seascape Demo
• Reference Photos for Artists: Seascapes

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