Last night I woke up several times thinking about, even dreaming about the value sketch I did yesterday in preparation for today's painting of the Allagash Waterway. I decided that the majority of the painting should be completed in subtle shades of warm and cool grays; and that the gradation in the water should gradually approach the highlighted whites of the water, both in the falls and below the falls.
The most bold decision came from deciding that the canoe and the figure needed some color. I borrowed a page out of Winslow Homer's whitewater watercolors and chose to paint the canoe red. If any watercolorist paints a canoe scene or a sailboat, it is going to call forth the image of many a Homer painting of those two subjects.
Still, the composition is mine. The canoe points toward the waterfall and the figure in the canoe also employs body facing to highlight the falls. So both placement and color emphasize the two major elements in the painting: the falls and the canoeist.
Again, study my value sketch to analyze the compositional planning that went into this painting.
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