Voyage of the Mayflower in rough seas - WIP stages

Four stages of the oil painting in progress

During September through to October 2019 this painting of the Mayflower, on its voyage to the new world in 1620, was created. It is an oil painting done on a canvas support sized at 24” x 36”.

The panel shows four stages of the painting. In the first section can be seen the canvas covered with a brown acrylic base, on top of which the drawing of the scene has been down with a darker acrylic line. White acrylic paint has been applied to show tonally lighter areas in the composition. Moving to the second panel a diluted oil paint layer has now been applied. These colours are applied thinly and give an indication of colour placement and tone relevant to each other, even though overall the picture looks (deliberately) dark. This acts as an underpainting so that when a new layer is applied, using thicker paint, the underpainting acts as a good support. The 3^rd panel shows some 'proper' painting applied with details,with the last panel showing the finished painting. It should be pointed out that after the painting layer has been applied, and once dry, a 'glaze' layer is sometimes added in this case. This is like a semi transparent wash of colour (mixed with clear oil) applied over elements in the painting to emphasize colour qualities, for example adding hints of green to the blue water to give added depth.

The painting can be seen in greater detail on this link.