"Marina Greens" is part of my Marina Scapes series, and was painted entirely en plein air at Washington Sailing Marina. On this particular day, I had forgotten my favorite rectangular palette knife, and so was forced to use what I had. I pulled out a trapezoidal palette knife which gave me very interesting shapes and marks .I decided to use a very white space towards the middle of the painting and to leave the sky a light color (and not blue). My favorite part of the painting is the orange dot in the lower middle. This is actually my reference to an orange life saver ring. Some fellow artists told me I should remove it because it creates a kind of bulls eye where all the focus gathers. Well, guess what? That's my favorite part and I'm leaving it!