A Painting A Day

I have always loved this photo, so I thought it would make a great painting. It was taken our first summer at the lake house.  Daddy had passed away in August of 2005 (I think that's right), and then we bought the lakehouse in December. Daddy had built two little boats like this.  We got one and I think John got the other.  He even made the oars! So we take it out on the water and it floats!  I snapped this picture of Ian from the dock.

A few technical details. I did this in oil on a 14x16 stretched canvas. Also I had primed this with a really warm orange, so the orange shows through in a lot of places. I was very pleased with the effect, and I think I'll prime some more the same color.  I love working with oil. It's just so nice to mix the colors right on the canvas.  I did that with everything. And again, I did not stay true to the actual colors in the picture. I made it a bit more colorful.

I worked with pretty large brushes for most of it... mostly a number 4 filbert and a number 4 round. It was very hard to do the detail in the face. I tried to switch to smaller brushes, but couldn't really control them on the canvas.  I read up on how to do fine control online and it looks like I need to get a mahl stick. It's just a stick with a padded end that you place on the canvas to steady your hand. I'll have to try that!

I'm not really sure if this is finished. I think that's the thing that's the hardest for me... determined when to stop.  I do think I need to fix his shirt (it looks like there's a lump of something in the front), and I need to fix the colors on his left arm, the oar on the right is not even painted,  I need to put more detail in the wood of the boat and I need to work on the shadows under the boat a bit. So maybe I'll work on it a little more tomorrow. If not, maybe it is finished! LOL