Bodega Bay

[Hugh Jago]

Here is my latest picture. I found that Portraits are very easy in Xara, but I wondered how easy it was going to be to do a landscape or seascape. The answer for me was "It's very dificult, and can get rather tedious".
Nevertheless after nearly a year here is the Draft No. 1 rendition of "Bodega Bay". Any comments gratefully appreciated before it hits canvas.
Regards HJ

[steve.ledger]

Impressive.
Only thought is that it has a cropped feel to it?

[Hugh Jago]

By cropped, do you mean that there are areas that don't flow? If so, I admit the upper right breaking wave is a bit of a cheat. I'll redo it. Any other thoughts?
HJ

[steve.ledger]

By cropped I simply mean't it appears as if it could be just part of a much larger image which has been cropped to focus only on the bird flying over the breakers

[David O'Neil]

Are we looking up at the bird, but down at the waves? If down at waves, why can't we see more ocean behind the back wave? Are we (and the bird) really going to get swamped by that back wave when it comes crashing down on us?

Those are the questions that come to my mind. That is an amazing amount of patience on your part, and I do like the way the waves have a certain type of power, and the froth that you have captured.

You might want to check out JokeArtist's brushes--they can probably make something like this much easier.

[gray]

Hugh, do you lay it out in vectors then put it to canvass with traditional paints? I like the overall look of your work. It will be interesting to see it painted if that's the way you're going.

[Hugh Jago]

Thanks for the comments.
The intent was to draw a bird flying between two waves. I used to walk my dog down on the beach and the birds fly about two feet off the surface down the 'alley' between breaking crests, so I suppose my intended view was slightly from above on the bird and first wave, but eye level or below the 2nd wave.

I draw the vectors first in xara and then when I think it's ready I print off a copy of the size the final painting will be. So with "Out of the Chute" I actually had a large print the same scale as the painting. At various times I also blow up the xara picture and actually paint the pixilate colors. It's incredible that when you step back a picture emerges from the chaos. In this way I can see incredible details in any size, and when my talents fail me I find that Xara can get me back on track. The Left hand of the cowboy in "Out the Chute" was impossible for me to paint. I ended up with 4 letter size pages from xara of what it should look like, and I duplicated the Xara colors and gradients. Hope this explains it.
HJ