I was able to spend a Sunday afternoon with my daughters in the studio and while they drew their stuff I was able to map out the coordinates of the objects in this painting.

It is painstaking work but I am learning a lot about how this painter arranged everything.

The sketching might look a bit haphazard but don’t let that fool you the coordinates are accurate to the millimeter.

I was able to get the diameter of the moon as well as it’s X and Y coordinates otherwise known as latitude and longitude.

There is a technique to do this which I will describe in a separate article so that you do not have to use an opaque projector.

I was also able to get the X and Y coordinates of all the mountain peaks and cliffs, as well as the position of the sailboat and it’s orientation above, at, and below the horizon line, and the perceived shoreline, @ viewer position.

I have actually rendered the basics of the moon and the top mast and main sail. They came up in pretty accurate position all things considered.

This canvas is exactly 583x the scale of the reference drawing.

I am using Google sheets to convert X height from top edge and Y width inwards from right edge for the bottom right corner of the main sail where it meets the horizon line.

Here’s the coordinate in original (reference drawing in cm.m and it’s converted scaled value (on canvas) in cm.m.

As noted above I will share the exact technique for this process most likely in a YouTube video once I get the script written.

I’d also like to give credit to my engineer friend JD in the video as well as the corresponding web posting for coming up with the simplest formula in answer to an email I wrote him.

You might ask: “why study another artist?”

My best answer is that with regard to oil painting there are quite a few related disciplines within fine arts and illustration that lead to solid work versus days weeks or even months of constant reworking of mistakes.

In oil paintings the chemistry of each layer has to relate properly to the layers around it above it and below it. The chemistry of the oil paint out of the tube differs from color to color due to the chemical elements used to manufacture the given color. Also within the tube there are several other ingredients which also differ in terms of how they dry, shrink, bleed, and otherwise interact with neighboring colors.

And that’s just the color in the tube, without regard for the solvents used, or expanders used, such as Linseed Oil, or stand oil.

So the technical answer to why study someone else’s work in this particular post is given with the reader also keeping in mind that this work is being done presently in acrylic to rule out the chemistry of oils and just focus on the other part of the answer which is one of drawing and perspective, positive and negative space, color, light, shadow, and other factors.

Starting out with an artist who has done work that can be studied easily as a way to build up all of the skills and gain an understanding everywhere needed in technical and chemistry areas. 

There is also quite a bit of aesthetic enjoyment as one begins to solve the hidden formula with regard to how the artist laid out this work overall. 

All of this contributes toward a future understanding of how to produce original independent work of one’s own that contains all of the more advanced skills one would need to impress an audience or get a message, impression, concept or mood across.

My answer might not be good enough for some people but consider it from another angle: That of an architect, that of a chef, that of a pilot, or even that of a brain surgeon. Or even simpler a student driver of a car, in a given city.

You can’t just hop into a car and go to a specific destination if you’ve never driven before. You can’t design a building, bake a cake, fly an airplane, or do brain surgery without studying.

The same applies with regard to drawing and painting and learning from the Masters. There are many reasons why their work was considered superior even centuries after they passed on. One would do well to understand the accomplishments of those who came before them.

It’s not a matter of loyalty, it’s a matter of detail.

One must practice in all disciplines, even the most simple. Practice builds experience and situational awareness.

While some regard to fine arts as a play pen, I regard them as a place where many different scientific, mathematical, and aesthetic devices come into play.

Be it chemistry of light and color with regard to working with dyes, pigments, inks or paints, or the mathematics of geometry (perspective) or the basic algebra of calculating latitude and longitude coordinates at multiple scales or units of measurement, or the aesthetic and creative endeavors of inventing three-dimensional spaces in which one can render anything, -these are my preferred, perhaps “old-fashioned”, yet to me more rewarding and “grounding” pastime, than what I had been spending time on prior, e.g. the Internet.

I am dictating this text into a mobile phone and apologize for the grammatical structure of my spoken words.

But I hope some of the answers or input have given might be understood by any reader who might be interested in similar work.

Or why I might have moved on from being quite involved in my former multi-decades career as an Internet publisher, Linux / UNIX Systems Engineer / Admin, Database Administrator, Network & Security Expert, some-time Coder.

If you are too old or poor or unconnected to study astrophysics, perhaps the rigors of fine art might be a suitable Haven.