On a recent trip to Mullion Cove I took photographs of three small fishing boats. It was an absolutely beautiful day. The water was crystal clear and I was entranced by the reflections of the boats and the way you could see the bottom of the harbour. I decided that I wanted to try and capture these reflections as realistically as possible. I wanted to attempt a as close to a photo realist depiction as I could. this was going to be a real stretch of my technical abilty. I chose a pre-stretched canvass 12"x12". I started with a rough sketch. Unusual for me to do so on an oil painting but I was struggling to decide how much I wanted to make the boats a featue of the painting.

Next, I started by mapping in roughly the colour of the boats and a veridian hue wash of the water. This was to try and get some tonal quality early.

I continued to build up layers of veridian hue, cerulean blue and french ultramarine. There was a lot of put colour on then removing it in an effort to get the tonal quality in the reflections. I also started adding some of the other colours which were reflecting, such as the pinks of the lobster pot floats.This was to prove to be a very difficult undertaking to get the reflections looking right.

I continue to build up layers. I was using progressively thicker oil paint. I got to a point where I couldn't really progress. It was time to put the brushes down and leave the paint to settle for a couple of days. This is where the patience comes in and more time is spent actually looking at the painting than adding to it.

During the next session I started to add more detail to the reflections and work on the darker areas. I was working on dry paint so a lot of time was spent mixing paint to match the existing, otherwise it can start to look patchy and muddy. This would have been disasterous as the life in the reflections would have been lost.It was also time to add highlights. This was key in starting to see if I had got the movement and depth in the reflections.

Once I was reasonably satisfied with the reflections I went to work on the boats. These were great fun to do. I really enjoyed the variety of colours and the sense of bright light on the boats. Liberal use of white and pale yellows were used to get the contrast. When trying to get a sense of photo-realism it is important to work in as many contrasts in light and dark as you can (Ciarascuro is the posh name for the technique). I spent a lot of time on the left hand boat. Whenever I looked at it, it looked crooked. I spent a lot of time adding painting and taking it away trying to resolve the problem. After further study of the photographs, I finally realised that it was the boat that was slightly crooked in the bow and not my eyes after all! Finally I went back to the reflections to add highlights and low lights to add movement and life. I had great fun doing this painting I hope you like it.