9x12 inches. Gouache on watercolor paper mounted to board. 
 
Painted during the 2025 Paint Sausalito event in Sausalito, CA.  I spent maybe over an hour trying to find this boat. Why?
 
Well, because Barbara Tapp, who is a fantastic watercolor painter, posted some pictures on Facebook and I saw a picture of that boat, and told myself, “oh, my God, I’ve got to paint that one.”
 
As soon as I saw that photo, the vision came to me. That's why I went with such a dramatic modern, contemporary style composition for it. A huge swath of negative space that dominates most of the composition is not something that people would normally go for, but I thought I would take a risk with it just because I saw in my mind that that's how I wanted to paint it. That's really what art comes down to in plein air painting. The decisions you make before you even start have so much impact on how the finished piece is going to look, because you see it in your head, you maybe sketch it out so that you can see it before you commit a bunch of time to it, and then you execute on it.
 
I tried to use Google to find it, because I saw a picture of the same boat in an area that was completely different from where I actually found it. I kept expanding my radius as I kept failing at finding it. I was scanning all the docks and found a lot of interesting yachts, schooners and whatnot, because I figured even if I don't find the boat I’m after, there were plenty of other consolation prizes. I did finally find a popular red tugboat that was known to be near the boat I was after.
 
As I was making my way over to it, who did I run into? Barbara herself! I'm really glad I did, because I don't think I would have found it on my own. She told me that you have to do this convoluted trek along the docks there to find my prized boat. It's even a really kind of small area that you could set up to paint.
 
It was a nice, peaceful setting other than the docks bobbing up and down here and there sometimes when a large boat went by and caused some waves. But other than that, it was really nice. The painting came together pretty smoothly. It took me a couple of hours. If you know in your head what you're going to do and how exactly you want it to look, all that's really left to do is just execute on it and it will come together in a fairly smooth way. Stay locked in, concentrate, don't let things distract you, and it should come out as a pretty decent painting.