Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Kelp Forest Exhibit

This spring (2013) we headed over to Monterey to visit the Aquarium.

I have been working on a series of watercolor paintings that are framed naturally by a presidium. Stages have a presidium that frames what the audience sees.  One of the watercolor paintings was made from the viewing of Mazatlan, Mexico from the buffet of a cruise ship.  Another frames the baseball game at ATT park in San Francisco in the same manner. This would be the third in the series.

I use a medium over canvas and the paintings are watercolors on canvas backing. 

I also have been fortunate to find a developmental tool for watercolor paintings.  Cheap Joes offered a deal on their paint books this Spring.  Their paint books have a drawing sheet in front of some Kilimanjaro 140 pound cold pressed watercolor paper.  There are 20 sheets of each in the paint book. The size is 12 inches wide by 9inches tall.

Follow along and watch the process here as the drawings go from the sketch pages with annotation to watercolor trials on the sheet that follows.

The setting is the Monterey Aquarium's kelp reef forest exhibit.

 This version is more event oriented than the ones that follow. It  follows the original idea of a theater like setting than the ones that follow.

 I thought that it would be nice to add a more people oriented work and play with the value of the aquariums dark sections in this version. As the people came in the need for shadow in them dropped.

 In these the two major subjects added were the girl riding on the dad's shoulders on the far right and the East Indian couple in the lower left. I also had some fun with a cowboy had and another hat on a couple of patrons in the center.

 Having extra drawing paper attached allowed for more experimentation. The people down in front could be smaller.. Overall this version may have too much red.

 The girl riding the father's shoulders is looking better.. I gave the dad some legs. The East Indian couple is still far from acceptable.

 This support page got me doing all sorts of people.. some holding up Ipads to take photos. The North Dakota couple show up here for the first time.  They were a little dumfounded by the display and I need to work to reflect this combination of baffled and amazed. They should hold down the front and center position in the final painting.

 This should be the final drawing/ watercolor support page before going into canvas.  I added the girl with the Monterey sweatshirt down in front. The North Dakota couple are looking better. When this goes on the canvas I think that there will be more red in the people's clothing and a little more work needs to be done to identify the girl on the shoulders and the plants and shape of the presidium. The canvas is much taller and will allow for more vertical representation.

Hope you enjoy!  : ) Pat