I am not using pure titanium white as I need to keep the tone darker so I can paint highlights and sparkles at the end, so I add a little ultramarine blue, burnt umber and quinacridone magenta into the mix. Using a flat bristle brush I begin working on the areas of light on the wave crest, foam burst and white water. Using a flat bristle brush I add wispy bits to the cloud edges to make it look like turbulent clouds you get in bad weather. I add more highlight into the clouds with titanium white but still dropped the tone a little by mixing in a tiny amount of ultramarine blue, burnt umber and quinacridone magenta. Many areas need repainting and I use the colours in the sky that I used in the blocking-in process. So now that the painting is dry I start adding detail to the sky and clouds and refining their shapes. With the blocking in stage complete, I allow the painting to dry before beginning the next stage of the painting. I form the basic shapes with an ivory dagger brush. To complete the blocking in stage I paint the areas of the rocks that are in light using a combination of burnt umber, burnt sienna, yellow oxide and titanium white. I block in the shadows of the rocks by mixing burnt umber with ultramarine blue which creates a near-black. I use my trio of blues for the sea at the bottom of the painting and I also add a little quinacridone magenta and pthalo green to darken the tone. I paint the shadows of the breaking waves by mixing ultramarine, cobalt blue and titanium white. I also use the colours to roughly mark out the shadows in the foreground white water. As I paint the main body of the wave I start introducing cobalt blue and ultramarine blue. I paint the translucency of the wave by mixing cobalt teal, pthalo green and titanium white. I use pure titanium white to roughly mark the areas where the highlights of the waves and white water will go, again I am not worried it’s come straight from the tube as it’ll soon mix with the other shadow colours I am going to use. Whenever you paint a seascape or indeed a landscape go for either a high horizon or a low horizon, never in the middle of the painting as it is distracting to the composition. I paint the horizon of the sea taking care to desaturate my blue mix so it doesn’t come forward in the painting.
I then add a little quinacridone magenta to tip the mixture on the violet side and then add titanium white to lighten the tone. I always begin by painting the sky as this is the furthest away, I mix the colours in the sky with cobalt blue, cobalt teal, a little ultramarine blue and titanium white.įor the clouds I paint the highlights with pure titanium white, knowing that the shadow colours will mix in and that I’ll be returning to it later on in the painting.įor the cloud shadows, I mix ultramarine blue with burnt umber which knocks out the saturation of the blue. You’ll notice I am not painting on a white canvas, instead, I previously applied a layer of burnt sienna which gives vibrancy to the painting as it comes through the paint layers. I begin my painting by sketching out the scene with titanium white mixed with quinacridone magenta and Liquin Original which is a medium that thins the paint and speeds up the drying. I used the following colours in this painting: I painted this artwork in oils but you could also paint it in acrylics as well. The other rocks in the foreground also point in the direction of the breaking wave. The direction of the clouds then leads the eye across to the right to form an ‘S’ shape before leading the eye back down towards the rocks on the right. The composition I have created for this seascape is an ‘S’ composition, where the breaking wave is the focal point and the direction of the rocks in the foreground leads the eye towards the wave. I would thoroughly recommend you do some sketches before you get into a painting, it’ll make it so much easier. SketchingĪfter I get my photo reference I sit down with my sketchbook and draw some small thumbnail sketches which results in a final sketch which I refer to when painting my seascape. And finally, we have shadows, which help to add more drama to our painting by adding contrast between light and dark and it helps to make the painting look more three-dimensional.
We have some jagged rocks, which always adds more drama to a seascape especially when there are spills and water hitting the rocks causing foam bursts. Seascapes look very dramatic and are easier to paint when the light is coming from behind and to the side of our subject. We have light shining on the rocks and the back of the waves. So we have a few ingredients here to create a dramatic seascape, the first is some large waves and heavy swells.
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