Start of 2nd Lighthouse Painting

This is the background of my second lighthouse painting. This time, I wanted to have the ocean in the background. I chose to do a stormy scene because I thought it would be more interesting. I was surprised at how hard it was to get the colors toned down enough for it to look stormy. I reworked the background a few times because the sky looked too blue and the ocean looked too blue-green. I am trying to go for realism here, and sometimes the "real world" is pretty gray.