Painting Water

From Tuesday's post, you know I wanted to paint water. More importantly, you know I didn't want to paint "nice" water. As you can see above, this is hardly beaching weather. Besides, I don't think you would want to go swimming in these temperatures!

Once I move further into the piece, I'll identify the birds for you...that is, unless you want to hazard a guess at this point.

One of the things I especially like about working with oil paints is that when you use buttery paints (like Rembrandt), using a wet-on-wet technique is easy.  I find sliding the colors around and mixing directly from the tube without any medium is the best way for me to render water. The colors stay rich and I can keep adding more paint and moving it until the wave seems wet.