Titanic wreck painting WIP

Titanic wreck painting WIP

This image show some of the working for a painting done back in 2012, on the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic. The final painting was to be an oil painting, but to get there I had to do some research as it was not possible to go down to the ocean floor and take a photograph! I used Photoshop to draw out what I wanted to achieve in terms of composition and how to draw the ship in its wrecked state. I referred to a number of books on the subject and studied diagrams of how the ship hit the ocean floor with such force that the bow buckled and ripped along the hull. During the drawing up of the Titanic I wanted to understand what the ship is like when new and how it is constructed so I spent some time looking at photographs and illustrations which aided me in creating the ship as it is now.

WIP titanic wreck oil painting

After creating a working drawing I then did a small rough colour painting, again in Photoshop which allowed me to find what colour and lighting values using the same drawing. It was quicker and easier to do this than use real paint to find the values as I was able to constantly fiddle around until getting what I want. I also did not want to spend time experimenting when doing the actual painting in oil, because as it is quite a technical subject it is not practical to be 'loose' on the depiction, the danger being that the details get distorted and lost if not adhering to a disciplined work flow.
The finished painting can be seen here.