Any surfer/sea sport people, or artist want to share their thoughts on this?

I think it will distract. Your sea has movement, light/dark, choppiness and stillness. I don't think a literal addition that immediately gives scale or focus is needed. IANAA...obvs.

Needs a penguin

Needs a penguin shark

Yeah, I don't think it needs a focal point for the type of piece it is

needs more cthulu

Cthulu is actually quite a good idea. The style would fit the painting.

What is it?

it's a kind of slimy seaweed - on the rocks just near where the person's standing

What is it?

New Gladiator, innit. Obvs, durr.

Getting water and sea to look like it should is really tricky.

Have a look at Jo Frost, she does some lovely abstract sea paintings.

[i]Getting water and sea to look like it should is really tricky.[/i]

Damn right. This is the first one I have got 'okay' enough to bring down from the studio to properly look at

It's really good.  Very difficult to capture the energy.  As a surfer and very amateur artist I went through a stage of trying to paint waves.
This is the best I managed before I moved on

Looks onshore and blown out, you wouldn't get a surfboard out in that.

More white

and for really stormy greys and greens rather than blues

Matthew Hedges does some great sea paintings - we have 3 of his prints…

http://waveart.co.uk/litho-prints.html

Cthulu is actually quite a good idea. The style would fit the painting.

What is it?<br /><br />

Eh, what now? Cthulhu is one of the Old Gods from the Outer Darkness, part of HP Lovecraft’s mythology. I’m desperately hoping that Guillermo del Toro will finally make his version of ‘At The Mountains of Madness’, which will likely be a film I will only ever watch once, like ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’.

https://www.tor.com/2021/12/01/guillermo-del-toro-lovecrafts-at-the-mountains-update-weirder/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos_deities

Klunk - I agree that it needs the red dot but in what form?

Love it. @worldclassaccident in my view, leave it as is.

Wrong colours for a rough sea. It's never crashing white water and blue.
If you redid it in various shades of grey it might be good.
I have a print of a wave breaking on a beach painted to be at night . It's hanging in my lounge

Google Peter Hickson photography

He lives near me and takes a good picture, look at the colour of the moving water and try to recreate the energy. It's not easy

I will do another with different colours based on the feedback. Thanks!

I will probably add the sea monster to that circle area where I had placed the surfer. With a sea monster in the pictures you don't need to worry that the sea is the wrong shade of blue 🙂

I wouldn't add anything - it will distract, remove the abstract component and it'll be out of meaningful scale , unless it's a surfing toy soldier.  I like it as it is.

Olddog' effort is pretty good as well

[i] and it’ll be out of meaningful scale[/i]

I agree with this which is why I was thinking I might get away with a sea monster - you have no idea how big a monster it is.*

or more likely I will frame it as it is and then if it doesn't sell in the spring I will go back to it and add the sea monster.

*I still remember the acute disappointment when I saw a seahorse in the wild and how small and pathetic they actually are.

*I still remember the acute disappointment when I saw a seahorse in the wild and how small and pathetic they actually are.<br /><br />

They are kinda cute, though.
You could add a Pliosaur, they could easily take a Great White, like the one from Kimmeridge that’s been in the news lately. About 15 meters long, over 50’.

Definitely more white.... A lot more if it's truly "stormy".

And as said, it's probably the wrong colour.

The colour of the sea often reflects the colour of the sky - so if it's stormy it's unlikely to be a clear blue sky so the sea would be a duller grey/green.

(Depends on where in the world)

Apologies as I'm no artist and I'm viewing this in a mobile.

The thing that threw me was the scale.

Im not sure if it was a small wave coming into the shore or something much larger.

Personally, I took it immediately to be a small wave and I actually prefer it on that scale. The colour suites that scale in my opinion and brought back lovely memories from Crantock in Cornwall.

I think you are in danger of taking something that looks quite nice.

Plonking a sea monster on it.

And making something that looks really naff.

It's art man you don't need to worry about scale.

It’s art man you don’t need to worry about scale.

No doubt you are right but nontheless, it's what came into my noggin first off and it's the only noggin I have.😉

I don't think the colour is wrong. Maybe needs more white water though? Having spent a lot of time watching the sea off the West coast of Portugal and currently in Morocco. The sea can be amazing shades of dark blue and white. I would leave as is and just spend lots of time looking at rough seas, photographing them and experimenting with future paintings. Could add rocks to future paintings to give scale and focus perhaps?

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Having spent a few days looking at it now, and considering your inputs I think I will leave it without the monsters/surfers etc.

What I will do though is enhance the wave crests with the white foam and use this to bring the scale down to 3 waves similar to the photos above.

I am using the post Christmas lull to try new things and although I have done a few paintings with the sea in them, I have never tried to make the sea the main focus. It is an interesting challenge as you see a really dramatic photo and then when you try to focus on the sea it can really lose something. I don't want photo realism - just take a photo - so it is painting the feeling but with enough details to remain real. A delicate balance and why I appreciate the feedback from others.

Needs more phthalo green.

I love abstract stuff but when, as in your lovely painting, it’s fairly clear what the subject is, I can see how you might want to add to it. Maybe something subtle like shadows of a school of dolphins, or a suggestion of a ship wreck could work?

Not sure how well it comes out but this fairly abstract study of clouds gets an added dimension with the bird in it imo. It’s by a local artist.

Bit blue? Rough seas usually mean bad weather which usually means grey skies. Exceptions of course!

Goid paintings there.

I do like a Nazare pic for some scale

Just to clarify, the painting is no longer a 'rough' sea but some waves breaking on a beautiful BLUE day so suddenly the colour becomes correct. As the artist I will definitively state that was the original intention. I just need to add some white to the break points and some foam on the drawback.

I will post up the next iteration when I get time to paint. I was busy witht he Southern4X track (see the bike forum), and vandalising my car for pleasure this weekend.

Just thought I would show the update.

Waves viewed from the Clifftop

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The fact you are looking at the waves from above makes better sense of the perspective to me. It also explains why you are getting blue breakers rather than the grey and dark sea that storm waves would be.

Despite the evolution, I actually like the result. I am not sure it will sell but it can hang on my office wall for the moment I think, at least it will as soon as I make a frame for it.

I quite like that 🙂

[img] [/img]

I understand the perspective of the viewer now, I didn't before...

Available from NicksArtStuff.com once I have framed it and updated the website - or pm me with an offer 🙂

Nature doesn't make straight lines
Apart from that, definitely an improvement

Bought a Yeti, in fact I’ve had two.  Everyone on here told me I’d die.

Some nice haikus on this thread 🙂

I finally got around to framing it.

You are stood high above, looking down on the waves below.
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