More progress. I worked on defining the boats more, adding detail. You can see a difference, but they are by no means complete. I am leaving the paint "brushy" with the strokes showing, juicy. I am not trying for photo-realism, more like expressive representation. I also added the stuff on the dock. I have not repainted  the water or the vertical supports of the dock, yet. I am not being real particular about perspective, especially where the foreground items are concerned, the ladder. Some things are "indicators" not literal objects. I'm trying to de-emphasize the background items, using less detail there so the attention remains on the front 2-3 boats. I think my next step is the top right corner, where the shoreline is. That will be tricky because I don't want it to move forward unintentionally. I am itching to do the water, but am saving it as a treat. In the original photography there were many reflections of clouds, which I may leave out. I don't want the picture to get too busy and I want the deep blues to really shine.

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I have been doing landscape painting again and focusing more tightly on its design and the meaning an image has for me. The photograph below is one I took of Wellfleet Harbor in Massachusetts several years ago. For some reason it has stayed in my mind waiting to be worked on.

The painting is not finished, it is a work in progress. I've done about 3 sessions on it. As you can see all I've really done is block in the colors and the design making minor changes along the way. I've done a first round of defining the shapes and some details, but I'm no where near completion. I'm trying to capture a certain shade of blue in the water, the depth of it, the reflections and movement. The blues definitely draw you into the scene and then the structure of the wharf and the verticals bring you back to the front two boats.  I think I need to differentiate those two boats more, they look too similar to each other. In this painting, I ave been working all over the picture, bringing separate parts further along so the painting is in harmony with itself. If I add too much detail or complete one section too much too early, it is distracting and the details look too fussy though there are some pictures I have used this approach with.

I've always been drawn to boats as a subject. They are not as forgiving as trees to paint as they have a lot of hard edges, so they bring out a certain anal attention to line and detail. It takes a lot of careful workmanship to do marine subjects. And I'm not always in the mood for it. Sometimes I like to just to splash.