Painted and finished in September, 2026. 10”x10”.
Acrylic on wood panel, encaustic finish. Price $100.00 Cdn. Unframed
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Red sky in the morning; sailor’s warning.
Red sky at night; sailor’s delight.
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I will often use the last remnants of paint on my palette to tone a new canvas. I paint wet on wet which produces a very spontaneous painting in a very short period of time. I left this hanging on my Painting Wall for some time to familiarize myself and look for inspiration to finish the painting.
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This small painting reminded me of the old sailor’s saying about “red skies”, so I added a sail boat to my atmospheric painting as a focal point. Although the location is non-specific, this painting is reminiscent of sailboats out on the Salish sea with a brisk Westerly keeping their sails taut.
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I have been wanting to explore the use of wax as a finish for my acrylic paintings (called encaustic). I adjusted the painting of the boat to make it stand out more and then had a friend who is experienced in the encaustic process to help apply the bee’s wax.
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It’s hard to tell from a photo, but the encaustic process really adds a lot of depth to the painting. It was a perfect painting to test the process, because of the atmospheric nature and the subtle colours that come through on both sky and ocean.
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