In Red Sea

Love this!!!!!! I dove the Red Sea a few years ago, I have sine awesome video as I was diving on a rebreather and using a scooter and I have 5 minutes of footage with a shark just following me circle under the boat. You painting reminds me of that dive. Well done!!

Love the color contrasts.

@MHK - I would love to try rebreather. It would not scare fishes.
Once we went live aboard in Red Sea and dove near the wall in the middle of the sea. There are aggressive sharks there in Red Sea and when we already were getting back to the rubber boat the last was left in the water with that circling shark was my husband. It was dive number 3 a day and we were already quite tired to climb the boat, but when we saw that shark is approaching he jumped in from the water in the boat with the speed of light :) we laugh about it every time we remember.

For me it was different experience - we were in Caribbean and I was 6 ft away from the group as we were slowly drifting, visibility was alright but not super, about 20-30 ft. So I am hanging there looking at the reef and little creatures and corals and suddenly out of blue the shark swims to me. I honestly got scared for a moment and swam to the group. I bet my eyes were 3 times bigger than they normally look in the mask, my husband always remembers this story and we laugh.

@Umagaan - thanks a lot! I am actually surprised myself that I got those bright colors and they stand out just super! The trick was to let it dry overnight as I used Tee and enhance next afternoon with brighter oranges, pinks and yellows.

You're painting not only excellence above the sea surface but also underneath it!
The blurred composing here really meets the reality of colours and contrasts at a certain depth. The hammer sharks is a beauty and scraed all other life forms away, or ate all weak fish! I dove with a hammer shark (7 feet) in Florida 1996, but guess it was more afraid of me then vice versa!
You were right Sunnylady, making the painting dry overnight made it more sparkling!
An A++ painting from you!

Thank you for you kind support Voy! It looks a bit deep with that blue color. 15 meters maybe? I am glad I finally attempted to paint underwater landscape :).

I love the way you created the feeling of depth in this painting, can't be easy!

This is so great. I really like the way you did the sunny water above. You clearly feel below the surface.

@liquid clear- thank you! It is exactly the same like creating the distance with aerial perspective. However effect is more dramatic since water has more density than the air.

@LJM thanks very much. I firstly created it with knife but it was a mess. So I took a brush and mushed it in. 🤪

Perhaps you'll get a kick out of this Los Angeles Times Article

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-jan-20-me-23849-story.html

;-)

I'm trying to find the egypt video, but here is a cool one from the South China Sea- enjoy

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V3q5UkcMdM0HRVKW251ehwIPVZP1Sl_V/view

It’s beautiful! You’ve really captured the under water feel. Nice work on the shark and other fish and those colors glow!

MHK, that article is something to process and think about. This is very bothering. I watched movie (real footage was there too) where bodies were recovered from cave by team of cave divers... it is a lot to take.
We only recovered trash from Travis Lake in Texas. Of course not even close to the depths deep divers go.
Thanks a lot for that article!

@MHK - I asked access to the google video, so expect email from me.

ForestVueGallery - thank you very much! I am glad you like the shark and underwater environment!

@Umagaan - About colors I used Cadmium Orange mixed with TW and Cadmium red+AC+TW and PR101+TW+Cad Orange/AC.

I used to teach trimix and cave diving- taught many classes in Dallas. Didn't realize you were in Texas. It's difficult to process recovering a body, but the relief for the family to get closure makes it all worthwhile

Aha, now it makes sense about that article. You surely have skills for that. Are you the part of the team in California from the article?
I was in Texas and I hope to return soon, keep fingers crossed for me.

Your story about your husband brought me back to one of my scariest experiences underwater. I dove the shipwreck Andrea Doria off the coast of Nantucket. She sits 100 miles off shore, about 250' underwater so a 20 minute dive means about an hour of decompression stops before you can surface safely with our risking severe DCS. I was at my last stop, 10' below the boat but needed at least 20 minutes more before I could safely surface and a shark started circling me- longest 20 minutes of my life.

The article was about me MHK = the Michael of the article

You are incredible person MHK, this is incredible kindness to do it for people. Thanks for doing it!

Yep we had 5 min safety stop when we noticed that shark... 20 minutes felt probably like entire life... were you alone there waiting or there was someone with you?

Very strong artcile MHK, thanks for sharing this!
Now I know better why we get along so well my friend! 😃

I was solo, the current was ripping so I had to stay tethered to the anchor line. I had double tanks plus 2 decompression bottles so pretty immobile ;-) Read the book Deep Descent to see what else was "problematic" on that dive ;-(

Anyway- don't mean to hijack your thread but I love your image and it made me start thinking about diving ;-)