To lift up my boat

I lift up my boat at Granville Marina to paint the bottom this afternoon. Two of my friends help me. After the marina stuff lift up my boat and clean up the bottom surface with pressure water, we started repaint the bottom. At first, we scraped off the old paint roughly. This process is usually the hardest and dirtiest one because a lot of poisonous paint powder scatters. However, this time, we finished it super roughly in one hour. It is not perfect but I believe it to be enough for a half year day sailing. We used two kinds of paint; one is a so-called "precoat" and the other is "finish." Thought most owners paint precoat on the full surface of the bottom, we did it spottily, only at the pealed off spots. This process took less than one hour. We were to take a rest at a cafe near the marina, though the sky was getting dark and cold wind started blowing, which implies that a cold front is coming close, so we continued our job to paint the finish. Finish is poisonous black paint so that shells and seaweed cannot grow on it. We finished all of today's process before rain fell. All we have to do is painting the finish coat again, which is left for tomorrow.

Comments

[Elena]

Hi Irene!When you seal your wood canvas with Gesso you have to allow it to dry coletpmely. I usually do multiple ones that way they are ready to go when I'm ready to paint on them.I usually do at least 2 layers of Gesso on all sides including the back (3 layers is ideal) for longevity.Once the Gesso is dry, then you can sketch on on it.I sketch on Vellum or Tracing paper first so all the erasing and corrections are done on that and not on the wood. Once I'm happy with the drawing then I transfer it using another piece of Velum that I have rubbed coletpmely with a 4B pencil, you can purchase transfer paper, but I just make it my self.By transferring the drawing, you keep the Gesso clean and then begin to paint.If you do not want to deal with transferring, you can always add a layer of clear coat to the pencil sketch that is on the wood, let it dry and then start painting. The lead will be sealed and will not mix with your colors.I hope that helps.You've given me a nice idea for a blog post and I'll be explaining it using pictures.Take careMaggie