By
Armand Cabrera
I have just returned from six days of painting on St John Island in the Caribbean. I stayed with a friend who owns a house there and we had a great time seeing the sites and enjoying the local food and drink.
I’m still adjusting to a cool Northern Virginia Spring after spending a week in an 80 degree tropical climate. I will post some paintings in the next article once I get organized. In the meantime here is a picture of Arthur and myself painting the overlook at Trunk Bay—one of many beautiful places on St John and my finished sketch of the scene.
Hey Armand, Happy Easter, and great painting. What a beautiful place to paint. Im curious to know what blues you used for the water. the blue in the foreground reminds me of manganese blue. Beautiful painting!
Jason, thanks for asking. Happy Easter to you too. I used three blues and two greens and alizarin crimson, cad yellow light and white for the water.
I used the alizarin with ultramarine and white for the farthest water, then cobalt blue and winsor blue and white in the middle distance and for the submerged coral in the foreground.
Then winsor blue with winsor green and white, then just winsor green and the last is winsor green, cad yellow light and white in the lower right where the water meets the beach. Hope that helps.
Hey Armand,
Thank you, that does help. Ive never used winsor blue or green, but Im definitely going to pick some up and throw them in my paintbox. Your painting is a great example for the importance of chroma. Sometimes, higher chroma pigments are necessary. Normally, I have Ultramarine blue, Cobalt Blue, and Viridian on my palette. Those three pigments will cover most situations, but they wont hit that high chroma blue green.
Thanks again, Jason
Nice painting of Trunk Bay, Armand. Looks just the same as it did when my wife and I honey-mooned there 20 years ago and snorkeled around those very same rock formations!
Eric,
Its one of the benefits of the island being mostly a national park, things don't change that much unless nature does something.
It's amazing how you capture that beautiful Caribbean Sea!