Beach Boy and Girl, Painting in Progress

I just love painting children on the beach! I guess that there's so much nostalgia involved that it keeps me young, if only in my mind.

Here's a bit of insight into my painting process. For this one, I decided to start with the figures instead of the background. I'll try to capture the warmth of their relationship in this painting.

 

Below, I've started to rough in the water, surf, and sand. I've used lots of earth tones in the sand to give it character, as well as dragged my almost-dry brush sideways across the paper to take advantage of the heavily textured 300 lb Arches cold press paper. 



 

In order to give more interest to the horizon, I've added a distant shore and, since I want to give the water greater depth, I've painted over some of the surf.

 

 

I didn't like the way the water was looking, so I decided to remove it. This is not an easy trick with watercolors, but I'll share some secrets with you. First, wet the brush, then lift and blot as much paint as will come up. Next, use a special short, stiff-bristled brush called a Fabric Dye Brush by Loew Cornell, to lightly scrape the color off. If all else fails because the paint is a staining color, use Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

Now that I improved the colors in the water, I started to define the waves at the near shore.



 

Painting completed! I finished the water by making small, close strokes at the horizon and created longer waves nearer the shore. I also worked on the water and boy's beautiful blond curls, added more bright white foam to the surf, lightened the boy's shirt so that it would move more to the foreground in front of the blue water, and defined the feet.

I hope that you enjoy my new watercolor painting!

Beach Boy and Girl Original Watercolor Painting

Art Prints Available

 

 

 

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Beach Girl with Red Shovel and White Hat Watercolor Painting in Progress

"Beach Girl with Red Shovel and White Hat"

 

As soon as I saw this little girl on the beach, I knew that I wanted to paint her! I was struck by the child's activity, methodically and purposefully digging the sand, plopping it into piles, and gazing periodically at the ocean.

 

She was wearing a yellow striped bathing suit and surrounded by nothing but sand from my vantage point. I started to paint her that way, but quickly wanted a more vibrant bathing suit and a rich cobalt blue sky. I love painting shadows on something white. As you may know from my earlier blog posts, I'm using the mingling technique for her hat with mingled permanent rose, verditer blue, and mineral violet watercolor paints.

 

 

Once finished the bathing suit, I worked on the flesh tones, facial features, clouds, richer sky colors, along with texture and color to the sand.

 

 

At first, I was going to leave the ocean as a distant shore, planning on having the painting focus mainly on the child. But the more I looked at it, the more it seemed like she was sitting in a desert! I really missed showing the ocean, especially with lots of waves!

 

"Beach Girl with Red Shovel and White Hat"

 

Once the ocean was painted, I concentrated on refining the rest of the painting, lightening the sand piles where the sun hits them, toning down the sand a bit, and deepening the color of the water at the horizon to give it added depth.

 

I haven't shown all of the steps that it took to get to the finished painting which took me three weeks to complete. I just wanted to give you a bit of insight into my watercolor painting process.

 

I hope that you enjoyed this little taste of my decision-making process with this painting!

 

Linked to Watercolors by Barbara Etsy Shop, Watercolors By Barbara Website, Fine Art America, Make it Pretty Monday, IShouldBeMoppingTheFloor, BoogieboardCottage, Alphabe-Thursday, Join the Party {Linky}  Fall into Fall, and Pink Saturday, Five Days Five Ways, Friday Favs, Fancy These Friday’s, Friday Link Party, Saturday Show & Tell, The DIY'ers, Anything Blue & Pink Friday

 

 

Nursery Art Beach Children Paintings

 

  "Boy into the Surf"         

 

  

                                                            "Beach Girl with Big Hat"

My paintings "Boy into the Surf" and "Beach Girl with Big Hat" (unofficially, I call her "Beach Girl with Cheeks of Tan!") fine art matted prints, have gone to a new home in California!

Recently, I have found that many of my paintings of children have been used to decorate the nursery or used in a seashore-themed home. Since I do love the beach, I find myself noticing children anywhere I travel and then painting them in a beach setting.

That's how I did the painting below. This adorable little boy was at a festival with lots of booths, fun, grass, and trees. After getting permission from his mom, I painted them at the beach instead!

"Beach Boy & Mom"

 

I hope that you enjoy these paintings! Please let me know what you think.

Linked to Watercolors by Barbara Etsy Shop, Watercolors By Barbara Website, Fine Art America, Make it Pretty Monday, IShouldBeMoppingTheFloor, BoogieboardCottage, Alphabe-Thursday, Join the Party {Linky}  Fall into Fall, and Pink Saturday, Five Days Five Ways, Friday Favs, Fancy These Friday’s, Friday Link Party, Saturday Show & Tell, The DIY'ers, Anything Blue & Pink Friday