This Way to the Beach – 6×8 oil on panel

Using very visible brush marks and staying away from detail – Done!

Yesterday I was very non-communicative, keeping everything inside as usual.  My apologies – especially to myself! Here’s what I meant to say:

This path to the beach is on Jupiter Island, FL and really does have the perfect “S” shaped path that is a must component for a perfect composition.

(Read Edgar Paynes book: “Composition of Outdoor Painting” for other great compositional tips.)

The “S” shape leads you into the painting and makes your eye wander around.  In this case it wasn’t something I made up – I found it there while driving down the road to the beach on the north end of the island.  It’s private property so I couldn’t just pull over and paint.  But, I usually just snap a picture so that I can paint it later when presented with a situation like that.  Actually I also will take many pictures for later reference even if I’m on location painting.

Painting from photographs is a challenge because the camera doesn’t duplicate what we see with our eyes.  However, there are two things that are good about photographs – one you can take your time with the painting because the light won’t be changing and second you can view the picture on your computer screen and it’s a fairly good replication of outdoor light.  The one thing I modified immediately was to not include the “for sale” sign in front of the bushes.  Next I decided that in order to compensate for the unruly shadows produced by the camera I would paint in a lighter range, something I’m working on in general.