An Afternoon at Canandaigua Lake

"An Afternoon at Canandaigua Lake"
Ink on watercolor paper
5”X7”

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I have painted the historic boathouses on Canandaigua Lake before but I thought I would try working in black and white this time. I enjoy drawing in ink because it allows me to exaggerate the tonal ranges more than I can with color. I left the white of the paper for the plastic chairs and I used this as an effective counterpoint to the pure black shadows of the boathouses on the right. 

There's a time lapse video of the entire drawing process below (click read more). You’ll notice that I start drawing directly and ink and don’t bother with sketching it out in pencil. I don’t worry about making mistakes because I just draw right over them. These corrections can make the drawing more interesting because of the additional lines but sometimes the the mistakes are covered up by the subsequent washes of ink. 

 

Boathouses (SOLD)

These boathouses were built in the 1850’s and are a historic part of Canandaigua. This painting is almost like two paintings in one because the bottom half is a mirror image of the top half, although it’s wavy and distorted. Architecture is usually more difficult to paint than nature images because the proportions and shapes have to be accurate. Add a reflection beneath the architecture and then you’ve got yourself a challenging painting!