Jurassic Sea Finished Painting
Several months ago I started working on a painting of dinosaurs from the Jurassic. I initially chose a land scene with the focal point being a group of Diplodocus grazing. However, after doing some more research, I discovered that I had painted the neck position incorrectly on the dinosaur in the back, and it was bothering me. Changing it would have thrown off my composition, so I decided to start over with a different scene.
After rejecting several prototypes, I chose this:
I liked this scene because I was able to incorporate sky, mountains, coast and underwater into one painting, which gave me a lot of choices of species to include. I tried to include a variety of species without making it look too unbalanced. I painted most of the dinosaurs facing towards a single point, to draw the eye up through the painting to the sky.
The painting is different from most of my other works in that I have included a layer of phosphorescent paint, invisible during the day, which glows at night. I used a combination of blue and white glow paint for the area above the water line, and aqua and white for the animals below. Here's how the painting looks in the dark:
Next, I'll be posting detail shots of the different species in this painting.