Sketching the Nantucket Surf lends a truly deep experience of the ocean via the concentrated use of your perceptions. Luckily there are some consistencies to guide us.1)It is a sure bet to begin your sketch with a horizon line the place where the ocean meets the sky and to outline your sketch with parellel lines indicating color untill you can place a shore line.2) Look carefully at the colors they change with the moment and the hour.Blues, greens violets browns, yellows and the most slightly tinted whites are beautifully represented in the wonderfull ocean.3)When it comes to the waves and the actual surf my suggestion is to look for the consistencies of light and color and portray them in line or gesture. Even the wildly pounding surf is consistent (this knowledge is deeply reasuring to me!)4)A nice familiarity technique to use is the thumbnail sketch;make a 2inch by 3 inch square and make a mini composition skwtch many of these before choosing your larger more formal composition. The thumbnails are for your study and exploration alone in order to develope your intuitive knowledge and to create sucessfull works that inspire confidence. All media lends itself to the Ocean as a subject. Pencil, watercolor,oil paint, acrylic paint, pen and ink and pastel are common examples of media that have been used to portray the ocean......Compose the elements of the surf like the elements of any other painting.Consistencies of moving objects are less tangible that still life objects and less symbolized than a human figure. These elements are like music and poetry. They are used this way in a painting.The intangible elements of color, movements and light are the elements of your composition. With experience comes the freedom and knowledge to compose and manipulate making a painting much different than a snapshot photograph.

-1" wooden turned Christmas Ormament signed/at a Craft Fair for $2.00,-A Christmas card of a Pineapple (Nantucket symbol of hospitality) molded on handmade paper/sent by a friend ...this is where knowledge and appreciation counts I knew the symbolism of the pineapple and that papermaking is a valued art.,- 4"x6"etching singed and dated/at the Goodwill store for $2.00,-Holly Yashi Jewlry is actually collectable Art despite its marketing each work is signed starting at 20.00,-small monoprint shown at a Cape Cod gallery/I purchased this for 40.00 after the season hasd closed I know the Artist,-Signed and dated Watercolor in the Cape Cod tradition $100.00 at a show,- pochure printed poster of a P-town wharf 25.00 signed and dated, this was a find in an old gift shop it was 20 years old and cost $25.00 20 years ago but it has never hit the open market and it was fun to have a native woman tell about the boats that she recognized in the print,- Stained glass panel 3"x12" 20.00 in an artist owned shop most shops carry less expensive items in their regular stock. I also like to trade my own work for others art, these represent my most expensive peices of Art.........You will soon find the difference between a print and a painting but prints and reproductions of paintings can have value. I like to collect show invitations to hang on my refidgerator and to contact prints to my book case. This allows me to stay current with my experience and to study composition by looking at it incidentally.

This page has been visited times.

Search: Tripod The Web

Ask the Doctor on Tripod