Seascapes — watercolor painting by Ray Patrick
A single wave at the point of throwing, the lip already curling and the hollow open beneath it. No shore, no sky to speak of, and no figure.
The wave fills the middle of the sheet on a long horizontal, its crest cropped by neither edge, and the water runs out flat on both sides. The barrel sits just left of centre and is the one still point.
Prussian and ultramarine through the body of the wave, with teal and a pale jade where the light comes through the face. The sky above is a flat lilac grey; there is no warm colour anywhere.
The wave is drawn in long curved strokes that follow the water's own rotation, the pigment heaviest at the lip and thinning into the face. The spray and the lit edge are reserved paper, and a faint pencil underdrawing is still visible through the wash.
Watercolour on paper. Transparent throughout, worked wet-in-wet in the body of the wave and left hard-edged at the crest.
Lower left, raypatrick, in dark blue over the water, letters touching.