Photo Gallery: Red Boat Painting Project

Thank you to everyone who sent in their paintings for the Red Boat Project (instructions here) for us all to enjoy and be inspired by. From ink and wash to watercolour to pastels, acrylics to oils, these paintings show how different mediums each have their own characteristics, along with the artist’s style. Enjoy!

By Asif: ” I left the bottom corners blank to focus only the boat and nets in the foreground. After finishing the painting, I felt that detailing on the nets is little high and boat looks like a toy.”

From Marion: I like your use of negative space, which helps lead the eye up the composition and gives breathing space. The level of detail on the nets works for me as it’s balanced by the looser marks of the ground and grass next to it and decreases in the further ones. The boat looks right to me, but in real life it is a bit like a little boat in a storybook, starting with its colour.
By Bee: “My take on the creels, ink and water colour.”

From Marion: My very first thought was “ooh, Bee’s managed to stick to just line and a little colour as I’ve wanted to but haven’t yet managed and look how beautifully it works!” (Join the discussion on Patreon )
By Eddie: “Marion said some kind things about it but pointed out that the wall was rather prominent. This is after I tried to improve it.”

From Marion: I like your reworking of the wall, and it now lets the red of the boat dominate the composition. (Join the discussion on Patreon )
By Eddie: “While waiting for a layer to dry I thought I would do a quick pastel painting. It is on black wet and dry sandpaper from the hardware shop. It was labelled fine but was actually 180grit and just devoured pastel.”

From Marion: The sandpaper may have eaten up your pastels but working light onto dark has given the shadows and depth very effectively. I like the level of detail, the balance between it telling me enough so I understand what I’m looking enough but leaving enough for my mind to fill in as it engages with the painting. (Join the discussion on Patreon )
By Cathi: “The idea of doing everything but the boat in shades of grey came about after I did a ‘50 shades of grey’ workshop. However, this is really just tones of the same grey made from french ultra and burnt umber. I had underpainted with orange and gradually covered more and more until I liked the effect of quite a bit of orange showing through.”

From Marion: It’s very moody and effective! I think the orange is essential in giving it energy.
By Cathi: “I tried to get something a bit more abstract, but this didn’t work as I wanted so I covered the whole thing with a white glazing liquid ‘wash’ before adding inks to give the detail. You can still quite clearly see the under painting, and the overall effect I quite like.”

From Marion: Would never know there was an unsuccessful painting beneath if you didn’t tell! I like the effect, the geometric layer beneath the expressive telling a different story and connecting the composition.
By Cathi: “I also had a go using my favourite continuous line”.

From Marion: Taking the line out to create a frame on three sides is so effective. An idea I definitely want to borrow!

From Marion: This was my first attempt. You can see a video of its creation in this blog. Overall I was pleased with it, and delighted I’d tackled the subject because boats are something I rarely paint.

A3 size

This was my second attempt, working with the thought of having the red of the boat’s hull as a strong shape of colour at the top of the painting. I shared a video of my painting this to my Patreon project subscribers here.

A4 size

This was my third attempt, again using the red of the boat as a strong shape of colour at the top of the composition. (And it’s not merely to avoid dealing with the perspective of the boat!) There’s a lot I like in this painting, but feel it still needs another round to add some highlights and darken some shadows; it’s a bit midtone.

A2 size

A reminder: all the monthly projects can be found on this page. It’s never too late to do any of the projects, and if you’d like to share a photo of your painting email it to me and I’ll add it to the next month’s photo gallery.

If you’d like help with your project painting through a critique, this is available to project subscribers via Patreon (sign up here; there’s also an option for ). If you enjoy reading my blog, you can support me with a wave via Patreon. A big thank you to all my Patreon supporters and subscribers; I greatly appreciate it. If you’ve any questions on how Patreon works, simply email me or post a comment on this blog (comments get held in an approval queue until I’ve read them and approve them for publication or delete).

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