Beaches or a Dip Back in Time

Beaches

16 x 20 inches

Acrylic paints on gallery wrapped canvas

This painting is a hat tip to the “good ole' summer time”......with the emphasis on the “old”. I found a lovely old sepia coloured family photo showing this neat seashore scene. The figures were blurred but did show turn of the last century swimsuits......for the men what looks like a long t-shirt and knee shorts. The women......a knee length pair of “bloomers” over stockings covered over with a knee length dress and perched on their heads a “shower cap” swimming cap. And a lot of this is made of a wool (?) blend of fabrics......in the summer.....in the water.

I started out by roller brushing on the blue sky and bluer still water. I'd masked off the figures to reserve the white and their outlines. I added in the water line in the sand.

You can see the sepia toned photo I was working from in the upper left of the pic. The outline drawings directly above the painting is pen on clear acetate. I often use this to check where I have located my figures, when the paint is still wet.

I established the main two figures to get a “read” on how they should look. You can see the reserved white outlines of the other figures. I just begun to model the sand and waves breaking on the shore.

I carried on with fleshing out the other figures, and had a great time doing the waves coming in, the splashing of the children, and the wave-lets coming to shore on the sandy beach.