Study after Aivazovsky without tutorials

@Felix - if you get chance to read, photo on the phone is vertical, but when I download it gets horizontal. Any advice?

This is amazing. I’ve checked out a few of his paintings since you posted the last one recently. Would love to start adding ships like this to seascapes. Beautiful Sunnylady!

Very pretty

Lovely detail in this version. Also great moonshine article - I mean Moon Shine article :) Easy mistake to make but I guess it could be used if you run out of thinners!?!

Great sense of stillness, i l;ove this

@rah - or run out of inspiration ;)

Thanks for your kind words!

@happyisland - thank you! He was an amazing artist. I wish to see more of his paintings in real.
Another interesting brunch of seascapes was Nederland around 17 century. Those details they showed just fantastic and incredibly realistic.

@mgiese, @tel - thank you so much!

@happyisland - you surely can do so and start working towards your ships. Just start with pencil for old ships to understand proportions of masts hights and body length. Sails will be different but major proportions are quite simple. I have not done any ship with more than 3 sails on one mast. But I have seen paintings with 5-7 on one mast.

Sunnylady thank you for your encouragement that means a lot to me. You’ve given me inspiration and a belief I can do it! Thank you. I always appreciate your kindness and encouragement you give everyone here :)

Sunnylady, you have painted a beautiful, calm seascape. The extent and degree of cloud brightness and reflections are in accord with the degree of brightness of your moon; something that is not always easy to achieve. Your painting looks really great. Well done.

Hi Tom, somehow seascapes give a lot of pleasure to paint, in this method with medium it is also quite economic to paint as layers are quite thin.
I have a list of projects not related to the sea which I want to attempt in the impressionistic realism, but did not have chance to start yet. Thanks for the name, yes, I have seen his works, but already forgot I did. Surely can search for new ideas there. I need to get to the art museum to really push me for new inspirations, there is only one museum in the country I live currently. I am holding myself to go there, to extend the pleasure of looking at other artists paintings.

Dave, thanks!
I redid moon maybe 3-4 times in attempt to catch a better shade of pink or orange or green or yellow. Clouds gave me some troubles as I could not separate them from dark sky, so had to use some glazing to darken corners.
Thanks for your kind words and your support!

I really like this, suits the eye

Excellent The white moon shimmer on the water really pops against the darkness on the rest of the canvas. Did you start with a white canvas or a black one? (I think I see white on the edges, but I'm amazed that you were able to have such bold darkness without getting muddy on a light canvas. Unless you put down an acrylic ground or let the background dry a bit before adding new layers?)

@ mbbrickner - this is white canvas, no acrylic or any underpainting at all.

I always start without any liquid white or clear on canvas. In this case i started with around moon area, moon was placed last after mid tones were filled for entire painting. I have one black canvas - I doubt to use it as I think oil paint lose their beauty on the black canvas as light cannot go through and reflect back. But it is only a thought now as I did not have time to test my theory.

So I used phtalo blue, burnt sienna, burnt umber, alizarin and phtalo green and titanium white to create that darkness. I built in all the sky without clouds and sea without waves first, just general mid tone as I crossed checked value with the reference. Step 2 was to add clouds on top and initial light on the water. I had to stop there as it got dark outside and my studio lights are weak. It dried and when i came back next week i realized that my values are off in the corners of sky and corners of the sea, so I made glaze with the same colors again but without titanium white and darkened corners.

I paint using medium as I stopped being a fun of Bob's approach long time ago as I did not have materials and home made replacements were just okay. So I generally either block in color by scrubbing thinned paint (turpentine, even i hate it smalls bad) or I go in with medium = stand linseed oil+turpentine = 75/25%. I deep brush and mix my color on the pallet and go and apply it on the canvas. Surprising to see that color I see on the pallet can be off to fit into the painting color scheme. So i touch up first the place i want to go in if it is wrong i adjust color on the pallet, if it is fine, i paint it in.

If you ever have chance, time and access to this artist Channel check what he does (it is in Russian) with your skills you will be able to understand what he does and how he creates darkness on white canvas.

https://youtu.be/5stykrsrFSk

Very interesting! I'll have to check this out. It's interesting that you use turpentine instead of OMS. Any reason you picked that solvent for your medium blend?

Reason is very simple: here in Guyana I checked the single art store and I did not see any solvents. So my search took me to the hardware store. In hardware store usually in the other rest of the world you can find something that is called "white spirit" = OMS. So this OMS can be obtained from different temperature fractions of oil as it boils in the processing industry. Low temp which lighter to evaporate ( I think boiling temp range 40-60 deg C) would be good. With good cleaning it is a transparent liquid. However here they sell high temp fraction that has all that nasty carcinogenic chemicals (boiling range is 60-120 deg C if I am not mistaken). So this one is yellowish transparent liquid, which evaporates very slow plus I have to breath it. So this high temp is only good to clean brushes outside of the house. I think this high temp fraction is popular because it is a hot weather here and it reduces risk of autoignition due to slow evaporation.
My research took me to pharmacy next as old school treatment is made from turpentine (someone mentioned it here long time ago, when COVID hit and art stores ran out of supplies), so I found locally two varieties : turpentine oil(99% chances to find) and turpentine solvent (1% chance to find). Ideal is solvent as it lighter for lean under fat; but I have to leave with whatever is available, so most of it turpentine oil.
Cherry on the top: I read on internet long time ago if artists use OMS it may encounter in the chemical reaction with pigments and darken/blacken them. ( I do not remember all the details about this and I would assume that it also depends on that fraction used).

Fascinating! I know people swear by turpentine, but I’ve only ever used it to clean house painting brushes. I’ll have to try it again.

From W&N turpentine I had headache and throat was sore a bit and eyes hurt. I did not have windows opened at that time, but since then I learnt my lesson.

@ mbbricker - forgot to add - you are totally right about cleaning brushes with turp. There is turpentine in hardware stores too, that one is awesome to clean the brushes and way cheaper than artistic and can be recycled for multiple uses.

I used to have similar health issues as i had zero ventilation in my painting zone, i changed to Artisan water mixable oils which in terms of texture and colour are the same as regular oils but which wash out in water when used with artisan linseed oil, i haven't looked back since

Yep, this is a good alternative Tel! Thanks!

That so great paint , and i like a lot this type of paint with boats 🥰