Here's a painting I'm much happier with than yesterday's. I tried a number of new techniques which helped. Notice that it's a very stylized painting, much like the sport of sailboat racing. After having such a difficult time painting water I simplified the water in this image and instead of trying to put waves I simply left the wake as white space behind each boat.

I used masking fluid to screen out the white space of the sails and give them the crisp outside leach line that sails have. By utilizing masking fluid I was able to go back and place the batten pockets in the correct location on each sail and also show the correct rigging configuration. All the tiny details of a boat as Tony Couch teaches 'have to be in-scale and realistic'.

This painting is almost 4 times the size of the other paintings I've been recently done and the additional size allowed me to be more precise with the details. You'll notice that even the white waterline shows on the green boat to the rear.

All in all, I'm much more pleased with this painting and by 'keeping it simple' was able to pull it off with more realism.