daily painting practice - Maine fog, rocks and foggy rocks

Painting Fog

I find fog so interesting to paint.  The light is bouncing around within the atmosphere, dispersing color all over the place . Yet at the same time it holds everything it touches together.

Rocks on the other hand are an extreme mental excersise for me.  Meaning, that I must constantly think about the surface angles or planes, and figure how the light reacts to those planes.

Ah, but foggy rocks are even more interesting, because the fog softens the edges but reflects the light in weird ways.  It is very difficult to get just the right delicate balance between soft edge and hard edge, weight and atmosphere, depth and concealment when  trying to capture that feeling of fog lifting over the water and the rocks. I paint the fog in very thin layers and wait until the paint drys before scrumbling in another layer, wiping off the paint as much as I put it on the surface.

Painting in progress continues...

Portland Head Light  in the Fog