'Wild Owhiro Bay' Seascape - Painting Process Photos and Final Art Work

This was a small seascape I painted last year. This seascape was inspired by the coast of Wellington in the North Island of New Zealand. I wanted to create a painting that really focused on the power of the sea. 

I painted this art work on a wooden gessoed panel which is a beautiful surface to work on. In this blog post I will show you how I painted this seascape.

'Wild Sea, Owhiro Bay, Wellington', 10" X 12", oil on wooden panel.

This was one of the reference photos I used.

Prior to starting this painting I did a load of pencil sketches in order to design the composition.

I start by preparing the board with a layer of burnt umber which I allow to dry first. I find burnt umber helps with colour mixing as they jump out at you as you're painting.

Next I block in the clouds and then the cliffs. I try and use similar colours throughout the painting so the colours are more harmonious, containing common elements. I mix ultramarine blue, burnt umber and quinacridone magenta in the clouds and cliffs and adjust the tone by adding titanium white. These three colours are my go to colours for clouds, hills cliffs, shadows and more when it comes to landscape painting.

Next I start blocking in the breaking wave, using a mixture of blues. My favourite blues which I use for most of my seascapes include, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue and cobalt teal. I can reduce some of the saturation of the blue by mixing a little burnt umber.

I start adding at titanium white to mark where I want the highlights to go in the water.

I complete the blocking in stage by painting the rocks. As they are in the foreground I use dark tones in the shadows to make them come forward in the painting.

I leave the painting to dry so I can then start building up the detail. I use the same colour combination for the shadows in the white water as I did in the sky and cliffs.

I add the foam patterns in the breaking waves and build up the details in the rocks. I'm mainly using burnt umber, burnt sienna and yellow oxide in the rocks which all mix well together to create some beautiful earthy tones.

I finish off the paintings by adding highlights in the water where I have saved my lightest tones until last. I paint little droplets in the foam and sparkles in the water.

This was my pochade box easel setup for my little painting.

And this was the final painting in its frame.

I hope you enjoyed this blog post, I have more paintings on my website: samuelearp.com