11x14" - watercolor and gouache
My newest painting, an illustration of lobster buoys. It was a lot of fun finding the different types of buoys to include and choosing all the colors. Two of these I bought in Maine at a roadside antique store - the large yellow and black one and the narrow orange and green. The are both wooden buoys likely over 100 years old, and hand hewn/carved.
In Maine i learned buoys like the large yellow and black one were hung off of the boat and were color coded with the boat's lobster buoys. Supposedly the harbor master was then able to look through binoculars and make sure boats didn't steal from someone else's lobster traps.
I painted this with a combination of watercolor and gouache. Gouache is a new medium for me. I bought my first set of gouache paints a couple months ago. It's pretty similar to watercolors and i think I've picked it up pretty well, but I see it has it's own tricks and subtleties. I hadn't originally planned on using gouache in this illustration, but it did a good job of portraying the layers of peeling paint. It's useful, I think I may use it more in the future.
Can't wait to make another trip to Maine in a month. It's given me a lot of inspiration this past year.
As usual, prints are in my Etsy shop
Buoy Print
