Reflections

                                 Bay of Fundy Rocks

In this scene of some famous rocks in New Brunswick, Canada, I wanted to portray the solidity of the rocks and the softness of the beach and the water.  The hard edges of the rocks are contrasted with the soft edges of their reflections on the wet sand. Painting wet-into-wet requires a certain amount of courage. The tendency of the beginner is to come back tentatively with too much more water and not enough pigment.  Load your brush up with lots of moist pigment and make your strokes confidently.

  First, I painted the lightest values of the sand.  When it was completely dry, I re-wet the area and flooded it with pigment.  A quick hit with even darker values created the reflections.  And last, I took a dry brush and reclaimed the horizontal plane of the beach by dragging it through the wet reflections.

I liked the different sizes and shapes of these rocks.  The stark contrast of the values with the sky and the surf emphasized the solidity of the pillars.