Scenes of Fishing Boats

The fishing boats in North Rustico PE were mostly idle, with the occasional one going out with a boat full of tourists. In the painting, you see the many fishing rods lined up, they would be used by the tourists to try and catch fish in the deep sea. From the looks of it, they were catching very small fish, I saw a few boats come back, then the captain would gut the fish and throw the entrails into the water where gulls were waiting. I made a painting of that chaotic scene, showing gulls hovering over a fishing boat. In this painting, I chose the boat to paint because it had a Montreal Canadiens sticker on it (not seen in the painting), and the scene was quite dramatic considering how quiet it was, and that I was the only person in the entire area. It was about an hour to sundown, so the colours were still clear and bright, with intense sparkles on the back-lit water. Getting the boat right was a matter of careful observation and perspective. My initials are on the life preserver.

Sun over fishing boat, watercolour 8 x 10" cold press, August  2024

For a small piece of paper this was a real challenger of a painting. There was a huge row of boats tied to a long dock that connected to the main dock by a series of ramps. Everything was sort of bobbling around. The sparkling water looks neat. I knew that the horizontal slats on the central dock were key to getting the whole scene to make sense. I painted something similar in Amsterdam many years ago, an overhead view of boats on a canal. So I had that painting in my mind as I completed this one.

Row of fishing boats, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024

 

Here is a closeup frontal view of one of the fishing boats. The vessels all looked to be in good repair, and they ran on diesel fuel. If we had more time I might have made more paintings of the fishing boats, they are very technical to paint. Perhaps there are some like this around Montreal.

Fishing boat at dock, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, August  2024