Final Brush Stroke on "Painting A Beach on A Snowy Maine Day"

Believe it or not, it is snowing again! It was a perfect day to be in the studio (I am saying that a lot lately!)

I must say, completing this painting has been quite an interesting experience. I am not sure if I'm going to use any more of that un-sized paper! 

 When I left you last time, I had painted everything except the figure that I had "masked" so that I could freely pour paint for the sky and sand.

When I took the mask off the figure, there was absolutely no "tooth" 

left on the paper. It was just like a blotter. I painted the area of the figure with Daniel Smith "Watercolor Ground"
 http://www.danielsmith.com/Item--i-284-055-001
and left it to dry for 24 hours. This ground provides a new watercolor paper surface to paint on. 

I poured a wash of cobalt blue at the top of the sky, letting it merge into the first wash of manganese blue.

The sand required several applications of spatters to built up textures. I used all of the same colors that I had used for the sand, as well as some naples yellow and chinese white. 

Artist at the Beach 

36 x 42" image

The figure required several applications of paint. Perhaps I could have applied a heavier coat of "ground". I found that a stroke of teal blue on the shirt folds would literally disappear once it dried. So over the past four days, I have re-painted the entire figure until I was satisfied with the changes of values and temperature.

I did put in three sea gulls; I like the bit of movement that they add to the painting. I kept them very close in value to the sand or sky so that they did not draw attention.

You can see that I have used a limited palette in this painting. I use the blues in the sky, water and clothing to unify the painting. You can't really see in this photograph but I've used the complementary colors to enliven the painting. i.e. 

orange marks on the skin, spatters on the sand, and the clothing of the figure out in the water.

Little spots of Chinese white also add sparkle.

The two little figures provide scale and a sense of distance.

I did not use the literal value of the easel and palette. They have very dark edges and accents, and in this mid-valued painting, those darks would jump out too much. So I've made them a mid tone with just small color marks to define the shapes.

On a value scale of 1 - 10 with white being 1 and black being 10, this painting is a good example of  a painting with a range of values that goes from one to about seven. There are just a few dark accents (on the hair and easel).
The atmosphere of the air at the beach bathes everything in a slightly translucent light without sharp shadows. This is also due to the time of day; it was late morning.

The iridescent pigments are fun to use; this is the first time that I thought I had a subject that was appropriate. I think they work well for the texture of the beach.

The pigments that I used were Iridescent Sandstone, Scarab Red, Goldstone, Ruby, Sapphire and Duochrome Mauve.

You can see the blue that was spattered on the sand. Again, this was done to help unify the image. I like a limited palette, and carrying colors throughout the painting is very effective.