More rocks

 

 The background rocks closest to Hudson Bay were painted lighter, with less contrast, and bluer than the most foreground rocks. 

 

 

 

 

Rocks

 

The rocks rimming Hudson Bay are some of the oldest on our planet. Gneisses and volcanic rocks are accompanied by younger sedimentary rocks. Perhaps even more interesting is that these rocks along the shore endure a 14-foot tidal change twice a day. You might be standing at the edge of the water and once the tide goes out you can not see the bay with the naked eye.

 

Some of the rocks are enormous boulders left over from the last ice age. Here I am painting some of the smaller outlying rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Background

 

I've done a little tweaking with the sky. The large bit of moisture near the bear's nose has been softened and shortened.

 

The first stage of the water has been painted. It may look strange to have orange water but it underlays the "sparkly" layer similar to the technique in my painting Walkin' On Sunshine below.

 

 

 

 

Palette knife

 Some artists wield a palette knife expertly when they apply paint to a canvas or board. I view this tool differently.

 

 For me it is essential for mixing paint. I like one which is an elongated diamond with a sharp pointy end.

 

Secondly, I use my palette knife for mistakes. In this piece I had my whole sky carefully designed and drawn. Lights and darks would be blended just right to give a feeling of the type of stormy skies they have around Hudson Bay, Manitoba. I painted it. It didn't work.

 

I tried fixing it but all I ended up with was a mess. Time for the palette knife. I scraped off the majority of paint. You'd probably like to see what it looked like before I grabbed the palette knife. Well, I didn't take a photo of it - in too big a hurry to "erase" it. This is one great advantage of oil paint. While it is still wet one can remove it and not be distracted by its lack of success.

 

Time to regroup. What type of storms do I remember from my times there? How can I incorporate them into the overall plan? There are some aspects of my design I could use. After putting on some music I starting painting with a less cerebral approach to the sky. Below is the result. It'll be tweaked throughout the painting but for me the sky feels more real and organic.