Painting No. 28 - African Dugouts

12" x 6" - Oil on Canvas
SOLD

One of my clients, Dr. Ben Burton from The New Jersey Center of Physical Therapy, recently took a trip to Africa. When he returned he posted a number of photographs from the trip and was kind enough to let me use them as potential subjects for the project. One of the shots that immediately caught my attention was of a group of fishermen on these boats. They were almost total silhouettes against a bright sunset (or sunrise I guess) and I thought it would make a nice painting.

On the technical side, this was pretty tricky. The composition and color balance on this was pretty straight forward so I had to make the water really talk. I glazed on three or four layers of semi-transparent oranges, reds and even light blues on the base. I did a wash over the whole canvas to get a level of depth over the whole canvas. Then I painted the men on top of that and added in the texture of the water.

So there you go, No. 28 is in the books. Special thanks to Ben for the inspiration and if you are ever in New Jersey and need any type of physical therapy make sure you call them. They are as nice as they are talented and will take good care of you.