Trilogy on a Marine Theme – Part Two: The Return Home

Posted on May 18, 2011

The second marine theme that I chose was a night scene.

The desired outcome was to create a more melancholic mood. As one comes home after a long and assiduous day of work, instead of being hypnotized by the TV, I wanted to offer the opportunity of reflection and of being absorbed in dreams of relaxation and recreation.

For that, I chose to position a light-house on a limb of land, signaling to the sail boats their way home. I also wanted to create the impression of depth, by positioning the sail boats closer or further away from the shore. All of this, I had, once more, to transpose through a sketch. I must admit I enjoyed drawing it, with all my poor skills at drawing, knowing it will be saved by pretty mosaic work…

I won’t be taking you through each of the creation steps, as I did with the previous marine theme, but I will be focusing on mistakes and fixing them.

My 1^st and main problem for this project was the recreation of the light-house’s light. I just wouldn’t come up with anything, so, after days of creative blockage, I started doing the 1^st thing that came to mind…

I didn’t dislike it, but it felt of a completely different style than the rest of the pot. And, as I wanted to create a unitary style 3 piece theme, I opted for getting rid of the schematic light. Instead, I chose to dramatize the sky and go a shade draker all over the pot. Also, I added sparkle instead of mosaic for the light – a more subtle approach, allowing for the dreamy feel that I was going for.

And here is the work before the coat of lacquer:

And talking of mistakes, I didn’t realize that by adding the sparkle, the color beneath it would not be changed anymore by the coat of lacquer. Still, since I followed nice long strikes, I feel it brought out more the dramatism of the sky and added the note of realism that I was looking for in the 1^st pot as well – after all, the sky and the clouds are lit in the night by the light-house’s light in reality as well!