The Making of my Beach Painting

Thankyou so much for your helpful comments about phones in my last post. I'm still a little wary of taking photos on mine to upload straight to the web but I'm sure I'll get used to it in time!

I've just finished this painting that I'm calling 'Broadsands Baby.' There's a beach in Devon I've been to many times and it's filled with so many memories of my children, from when they were babies and later when they'd play in the sand or the sea. It wasn't always quite as serene as this painting shows ;)  but I wanted to create the feeling I have when I go there.

I thought I'd share with you my thinking process from sketches to the finished piece. :)

I had in mind using a palette of pale blues with little hints of orangey red. This is the first sketch, I always like the first sketch so much more than anything I do after that. Do you artist painters find that too?

I hadn't yet started the painting on canvas at this stage so the next day I did another sketch with the same idea in mind of the beach with the beach huts and a mother in the foreground. Although I didn't use the idea of the girl and the boy in the final painting, I liked the huts and the stone wall with the hills behind.

I collaged randomly at first, then decided to use some nice ziggy zaggy patterned giftwrap as dress material for the mum.

I hadn't used paper like this before with masking fluid and learned very quickly that it's not strong enough to withstand it. When I pulled the masking off it took some of the lovely pattern off with it and the baby's poor thumb too! Next time I'll make sure I seal the surface with PVA or gel medium before I paint any masking on it!

 I managed to recreate the pattern of the dress again, the colours were quite easy to match and soon the painting was in full swing again.
The hairstyle I left until almost the end. I wanted it dark to offset all those pale colours in the rest of the painting. A bright hair ornament completed her outfit. :)

I didn't want it to be too obvious that the baby was a girl or boy so I opted for a grey and white babygro (or as they seem to be called now, a 'onesie!)

**UPDATE** I've now listed it in my Etsy shop. :)

It measures 12 x 16 inches (30 x 40cm) and will be £80 

Thankyou for visiting me here today, I hope you enjoyed  reading about my painting process!

See you again soon. xx