This is a class piece developed around the idea of “Shared Seas.” We were required to do two paintings with this theme or the theme of immigration/migration of people.

Humankind shares the world’s oceans and it’s a damn shame some think they can take advantage of it without grave consequences. This is the water pleading for mercy. For all of us. This piece went through many stages, with this stage below giving me an idea of what I wanted.

As is often the case, we can rework something and lose what we had and move into something entirely different, but hopefully no less engaging. I thought I should show the progression of this painting.

This was my first pass:

Then day two:

Day three:

Unfortunately, day four produced a radical departure from where I began and I was not happy with the change.

I took this spooky version to class and the instructor agreed that the misty skull had to go. So, I adjusted the painting and then planned to bring it back to my original idea:

Getting rid of the skull made me lose the liveliness of the wave, so I took the painting home and planned to add the praying hands back and work from there. I was pretty discouraged, so starting the second painting idea helped me recover from my disillusionment.

The next day I painted in the hands again:

I took a break and then tried to work on the wave a bit. I still needed to minimize the hands and tone down the blue, but I didn’t hate it anymore. ? Plus, this last photo was taken late at night with artificial light. I would retake it again with daylight after I worked on it some more.

This was another try at reducing how obvious the hands were:

When I brought this painting to class the instructor was adamant about sticking to my original idea: the hands should be clearly seen.