The actual title of this painting is “Postcard from Paradise” but it’s the usual spot at Hobe Sound Beach.  This was done from a photograph that I had taken, actually I had taken many photographs that day because while I was there painting another painting more umbrellas kept popping up.  I wanted to be sure that I had the maximum number of umbrellas and this is what I ended up with.  The beach drops off and people set themselves up on the edge of the dune.

This is a pastel painting on Wallis Museum Grade paper.  It’s a decent size – 18×24 and I started with a water color underpainting.  The underpainting is mostly a block in of complementary colors. So, in the grassy foreground I used a reddish brown and pink for the sky and water.  An underpainting also saves on pastels, because the Wallis paper is a sanded paper that will eat up the pastels fairly quickly.