Sousse Harbor

Here is a watercolor painting of some small fishing boats in the harbor of Sousse, Tunisia. What attracted me was the bright light coming from behind, which made the gunwales white.

I also liked the foreground boats: one with a yellow tarp over the hold, and the other blue one in the extreme foreground.The bright sunspot at the center of the picture was so strong that it bleached out the dark tones of the the gunwale of the dinghy at center.



You can see the bleaching effect of the bright sunspot in this little video as I pan across the dinghy. The video makes another point: nothing holds still for the plein air painter! Just as I was halfway finished with the picture, the old man started up the boat in the foreground and pushed aside all of the others.



Here's one last video capturing the moment when I was painting the yellow tarp. This is very low-tech video, and something of an experiment. I'm just using a Canon Powershot 400 held in my left hand. It's kind of hard to concentrate on everything at once, and I was afraid of dropping the camera into the water.