Using Winslow Homer's eye-level compositional idea for "Canoe in the Rapids" I completed this little oil sketch.  I made no attempt to copy his painting, just his ideas.

I think dividing the moving water into distinct light and dark masses is especially effective.   This was a surprise for me, since I usually think of water as a range of half-tones.  I'm tossing that old habit away!

I'm not so pleased with the stiff-looking posture of the paddlers.   I'll have to work on loosening up these figures, make them exert themselves.  I think this painting would be more effective if we were facing the paddlers, so I'll turn them around.   I imagine the rapids are the Big Black Rapids and the canoe is an E. M White.   Of course, if you know the Big Black Rapids, you'll know that, as I've represented them here, these two are trying to paddle uphill!  In my next effort, I'll fix that.

One of my ongoing projects is to record scenes featuring canoes, as you can see from many selections among my paintings.  Looking around for ideas this week,  I searched the web for "canoe art" and found a Winslow Homer painting I'd never seen.  (It's "Canoe in the Rapids [1897]."   It depicts two paddlers in a birch canoe amid heavy rapids.  The original is in the Fogg Museum;  its image can readily be found on the internet.

Here's my hasty sketch of its composition, with apologies to Homer.   

This looks a lot like the Saint John's Big Black Rapids, by the way.

This watercolor painting radiates drama.  There are the ominous turbulence of the waves, the apprehensive posture of the paddlers, and the implied trajectory of the pitching canoe, its downstream line amid the rips hidden by the forms of the paddlers and canoe.   I like to flatter myself that I've completed a few attractive canoe scenes, but I've never conceived of anything as vivid as this.

How did Homer complete this?   Note that the artist's chosen point-of-view is just above  water level.  He couldn't have seen or photographed this.  He began the work with his idea for design, and then drew in the details to realize it.   He simply made it all up in his head.