WORKING THE BACKGROUND
Back in my studio and hating the background of this Tarpon painting!!!! The first layer was so easy, but now I wanted to deepen the lower part of the canvas and it's not working. I thought I could just add a deeper glaze (turquoise/cobalt blue/Liquin) but it wouldn't blend correctly so I had to cover the middle section also. I'm happy with the color range of the upper water, but I changed the direction of some of the swirls and sun reflection and it now leads the viewers eye across the painting incorrectly. The section above the tarpon, upper right is good, but the upper left section doesn't frame the school of pinfish and leads you out of the painting. I also glazed over the tarpon again and love how the glazes make him more realistic. But the more I capture the tarpon correctly the worse the pinfish look. While at the beach last weekend I caught a pinfish and tried to cement images in my head of it's coloring and reflection of light on the scales. The colors are more defined viewed under water, for instance the small blue stripes are almost neon. Photos of the fish out of water don't capture what I'm depicting in this painting. I'll work on them in the next few days after correcting the background.