A few days ago, I mentioned that I was planning to paint a beach painting of my friend's children. Well that didn't happen when I had hoped, but I got to it last night. I had more fun creating this painting than many before it. I feel completely lifted up and wonder what life would be like if I could do this every day. It has been a long time since the paint went flying. I think I finished this in slightly over two hours. While I need to do some correcting, I don't plan to do much.
I worked from a photo (clearly) that I took a few years ago when we all went to Hilton Head. I loved this shot, so much that I've painted it twice. One that I show you here and one that will never see the light of day because I used too big of a canvas and make a production out of it. This pose and subject to me doesn't really lend itself to a realist "production." I tried to be loose and impressionistic here. That is very hard for me because I want to paint all the detail and despite every effort the painting tightens up pretty quickly. I stopped myself by not drawing in the figures. I just did an armature (stick figure and square for the head ) and started applying paint. When I made a mistake on the figure, I used the blue background to carve out the right shape. Don't tell anyone but there is a painting underneath. That is another trick I use to force myself to work fast and thick. Anyway, I love the ultimate effect. I've got to do more of this fast painting -- hence why I've been going outside of my comfort zone and plein air painting.
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