This group of vendors appealed to me when I spotted them as I was walking through a less crowded corner in the Floating Market. They seemed to be taking a short break after a long morning of selling. Their way of taking a break was to get together and discuss their sales experiences of the past few hours. I happened to overhear some of their conversation when I began to make some rough sketches and take photos for reference.

The center of interest begins with the first vendor in the foreground. She was relaxing by leaning her right leg on the edge of the boat. I painted her shirt with tinted cerulean blue and the leg with two simple little strokes of tinted yellow ochre. Straight below I added another two strokes to indicate the shadow of the foot. I decided to add a bamboo pole vertically to break the almost horizontal direction of the boats, creating an angle alongside the first vendor for a stronger center of interest. I mixed tinted cerulean blue and tinted yellow ochre to paint the water of the canal. When this initial layer was dry I added a little burnt umber into the same mixture to make a little darker color for the shadow underneath the boat. I left a vertical white space all the way down through the end of the loose-edge foreground, to indicate the shadow of the bamboo pole.

A scale placed in front of the first vendor was partially hidden by a bunch of potatoes. Beside it were another three baskets of green mangoes, followed by lots of coconuts piled in the end of the boat. For the space where the fruit would be painted I first dampened the paper. I then used burnt sienna touching on some areas of the potatoes, some dark corners of the baskets, and a slight touch on some coconuts. While the area was still damp, I used a mixture of yellow ochre and cerulean blue, very slightly touching only on the lower corner of the potatoes, adding more colors into the green mangoes and coconuts. I left some coconuts unpainted near the end of the boat, to provide more loose-edges for the painting.Overall the painting is simple to look at, the subjects are grouped together as a whole, and the image is clear and direct.
I painted some wavy strokes for the canal water around the boat to get a sense of deepness and provide more contrast to the boats that are the focus of this painting.