Beach Visit

Today I went to the beach to do some studys (primarily of waves) of the beach. I really enjoyed painting on site and it really showed me what an absolute wimp I am!!!

Honestly it wasn't cold by all means. 9° by midday and I felt like my hands were about to fall off from just a few hours!! It also struck me how very difficult painting a landscape (or seascape in Thai case) is when it's right infront of you. Anything I had learned about perceptive flew out the window when faced with this huge scale. But it didn't scare me away completely...

Yesterday  I attempted to paint waves and this is what I ended up with

The anguish this painting caused me as I couldn't figure out how to make the waves look more like water and less like snowy mountains... I painted over and over it...So I had to go to the beach to see how really waves worked!

And so I went. 

The first thing I did when we arrived was whip out my watercolours and have a go. 

I looked at my quick painting and lookes at the sea. It was all wrong. The passers by told me how good it was and I just looked at them blankly. Were they blind??? 

I needed to really LOOK at what I was painting, so Tams and I took a stroll down the beach with our cameras. 

This made me realise that the colours I had jsut assumed before, were all wrong. In actual fact the sky and the sea almost blurred into each other. There wasn't much of a destiguishable horizon. The sand near the water was dark with blues and brown tones in it and there wasn't much yellow at all.... 

The water bounced light from it and swallowed it all at the same time. The shells and debri under the surface affected the colour too! 

I had looked at this scape and assumed the yellow sand and dark blue waters. Even when the real thing was right in front of me. Soo decided another trip was needed. 

Today was about looking. 

What is actually there. 

I will work from my photographs tomorrow and create a much more appropriate pallet.

I don't want my illustrations to be romanticised or made up. I want them to come from reality. 

Will update tomorrow.