I painted this the same morning as yesterdays painting. I usually wouldn't paint a bright sunny scene without any shadows to play with, but I decided to have a go at it anyway. My favorite part is the brushstrokes in the sand, and that deep teal color of the wave about to break.
And for some reason the camera didn't want to cooperate with me for this one, in person the sky is not that splotchy...
The best part about being at the beach so early in the morning is that no one is there! Everything is so peaceful, it's also when I see the most dolphins :) Painting into the light like this was a bit of a challenge though, I hate wearing hats, so my arm got a little tired shading my eyes.
I wanted to go out and paint (because the clouds were amazing!), but I could tell they were going to open up and pour on me any second. So I stayed in the studio and painted the view from my window. The ocean was an amazing color, a teal shade, that made it look much more tropical than it actually is.
I don't usually like to paint outdoors, but recently I've been venturing out more and more, just to get away from the sound of the freeway (and freeway construction!) that plagues my current studio. Standing in the sand on an empty beach beats a noisy studio any day. And I'm having fun getting loose with these plein air paintings, I have a vision of what I'm striving for them to look like (and...
This was some practice in taking a very busy scene and uncluttering it enough to get a decent painting. I like this type of challenge when I'm painting on a small scale, it's a little painful doing it for larger pieces
