"Winter Sea" - 11"x14" oil on panel - Showing stages of the painting process

"Winter Sea" was painted on an Ampersand Gessobord, which is an archival panel for artist. The first photo is the finished painting and it's very impressionist meaning that if you squint your eyes it will come into better focus. Many times I start painting the sky first and paint from top down, however, I thought I'd try something different this time. After I blocked-in the general design, I started painting the foreground rocks first. I wanted this painting to look very impressionist so I intentionally painted it very loose, meaning not much detail. I may use this sketch as a reference for a larger painting which I'll paint with more detail.

The first stage: I wiped a light coat of Kings Blue with lots of solvent (Gamblin Gamsol) onto the panel just to lower the intensity of the stark white panel. Then I drew a loose design where I wanted the rock formations.

Next Stage: I blocked-in the rocks in the foreground to get a general idea of where this painting was going. Most if not all of these rocks were painted over and/or changed by the time the painting was finished.

Next Stage: I painted some loose strokes of blue in the foreground to get an idea of the design. I wanted the more intense colors to be in the foreground and this gave me a "road map" of how light to make the background colors.

Next Stage: Same as the previous stage, but a bit more detail.

Next Stage: At this stage of the painting I could get a better idea of what needed to be added/subtracted to make the painting a better design as I only had a vague idea of where I wanted this painting to go when I first started. I now could get a better feel for the foreground colors vs the background. I painted more detail and finished the painting as you can see in the first photo.

Thanks for reading. -Bob

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