A little painting of the ocean

For this small 12" x 12" piece, I decided to paint a simple idea of a golden sunset over emerald waters, and waves lapping up on the shore. I wanted the sun to be low and centered in in the painting, with it's rays broadcast towards the viewer. It's quite a common theme in sunset themed ocean pictures, but I didn't want to be different, I just wanted it to stoke the many memories I had of many such scenes as I grew up around the ocean in Guam, Hawaii, Florida and California.

First thing I did was to sketch with a scene with water soluble pencils. Water soluble pencils blend well with the acrylic paint that I use to paint the underpainting with. If I use graphite pencils, they would tend to leach the dark graphite into the paint, making it much darker in an uncontrolled way.

Next, I start to put down my yellow ochre undercoat to cover the entire white canvas. And start making note of where the sky meets the ocean, the shoreline and basic cloud structure.

I use combinations of Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow, Permanent Alizarin Crimson, Titanium White, Cadmium Red Light Hue, and Sap Green to block in color shapes.

Once I get the blocking to where I like it, I start the refining process to build up the structure of the lapping waves upon the shore and the trickle of golden sunlight on the surface of the water. I also start to refine the cloudy structures.

Then, I start to go into the details of the waves and sea foam.

My idea is to keep the gold sunlight sparkling on the surface of the water, but also show the brilliant emerald green in the shallow waters beyond.  Also, I wanted the clouds to appear to radiate from the central focus point of the sun which is where I want the eye to be drawn to.

 The untitled oil painting in final form below. This was a quick and small oil painting that my wife wanted, and so it was dedicated to her.

StratoArt - The Art of Dale Jackson - A New Beginning

Welcome to my journey through the world of art! This is my new blogging area. Although I've had an old blogger account long ago, it's defunct and I'm starting fresh with this one as of 2024.

A tiny bit about me: I love to draw and paint, build scale models, build 3D models, listen to good soundtracks and have a good beer!

That's it :) short and sweet!

This blogger venue will be where I can share what I learn and what I love to talk about.

First off...I just finished this little painting for my wife, whom I've been wonderfully married to for 34 years! We both love the ocean, though we live in Ohio. We did live in California for nearly 15 years, spending a lot of time at the beaches there in SoCal.

This untitled painting is a 12" x 12" oil on canvas.

I'll share some of my journey through this little painting in my next post. Basically, I started this painting as a request from my wife, Anna. She wanted two smaller paintings to go along side a large painting of the ocean that I painted a few years ago.

Here's a portion of what that painting looks like. It is a large 48" x 36" oil on gessoed aluminum panel.

                                

And so I'll finish this post with a poem by Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936)

The Seal Lullaby

"Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us, 

   And black are the waters that sparkled so green. 

The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us 

   At rest in the hollows that rustle between. 

Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; 

   Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! 

The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, 

   Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas."