Painting: Beach Day Portrait

I wanted to try painting some figures in a landscape, so I looked through our pictures from our last San Diego trip and found a few I could use for inspiration. There are some really cute images of Audrey playing on the beach on a rather cloudy day with her grandparents.

I thought it shouldn't be any big deal to do a couple figures in a landscape. I was imagining treating the figures relatively impressionistically. I should have known. This ended up being three portraits because I really did want some likeness even if there isn't a lot of detail.

I also made it more tricky by using some photos where the light was coming from different directions. I had to compose the figures together and change the light on one of them to make it work.

I had never painted the ocean before and I thought it was really fun. Kind of like painting clouds. My favorite part of this painting are the reflections in the wet sand. I loved painting those and think they turned out pretty well.

I thought I had this painting finished a couple classes ago but it kept bothering me so I put it away and then took it out recently and looked at it again. I ended up finishing it at home. I finally realized some of the shadows were wrong given the light source!

I finished this up early for Christmas for once because with this baby coming I am predicting I won't have time later. I decided to give it to my in-laws. I hope they like it. I think it's a cute scene of them with Audrey.