This is really stage three as the top left buildings have had their details applied over the underlying base. The rest of the painting shows the complete base layer, see previous posts on oil painting where this is shown in more detail but is lines drawn (oil paint which is thinned with turps and allowed to dry) before the base colours are applied.
The usual method is dark bits painted first working towards the light, this doesn't always happen as sometimes it's easier to paint the dark over the light - I usually paint using thin layers so the think over thin rule doesn't matter. The windows and dark side of the buildings were painted first before working on the areas of the roof - in this case also covered in lichen which gives the orange effect plus the warm light of the morning. The white walls, mostly in shade at this time, were painted next plus adding all the small details on the windows (frames etc), drain pipes...
Detail has been applied to the harbour wall, being in shadow it provides a nice contrast to the rest of the painting which was in the morning sunlight.
The painting of the building on the harbour wall followed the method above. The wall was getting some reflected light but it's best feature and common to many of the Cornish harbours are the great lumps of local stone used to build them.
A really interesting stage of the painting - painting the sand and small streams of water in the harbour as the tide went out.
This whole area was worked wet into wet over the dry base layer with the only real sharp edges bits being the ropes and chains. Working from the background (below the building) towards the foreground, in this case in horizontal bands as this allowed for the small but vital details (ropes, chains and the pools of water or wet sand) to be added. If there could be a tricky area it's when small pools of water have reflections, as seen to the left of the foreground boat, but then it's paint what you see as that's how it is...
Oil. Alistair Butt © 2013 - #AB 021340
Part Four:
The last remaining elements to paint were the boats. Being of different colours they were painted one at a time, working from left to right, distant boats to foreground ones. As before working dark to light mainly, although if any part is going to have dark section within light it's going to be now - dark ropes, masts etc.