Postage-sized sketches

(C) 2017 Dale DiMauro

Since we had this extreme cold recently, at least in Vermont, I keep thinking about painting a summer scene to warm things up. Last summer while paddling my kayak I took a photograph of a small sailboat moored off the shore.  

These small sketches are quick little doodles. They are the result of searching for alternative compositions to develop into a painting. They lack clarity as I have yet, been unable, to arrive at a singular composition.

However, I have become intrigued or even obsessed with tweaking the shoreline so as it will not compete visually with the focal point, which is the sail boat. One of my ideas is to push the foliage back on the left side of the boat which will make the boat more visible, strengthened with it's shadow. Behind the boat on the left there is a beach which I may enhance, with a sand bar arcing out towards the water. Or maybe I will be inclined to go in another direction.

 I do like the vertical orientation of the boat on the page in a likewise format.