Week 9- Stepping Out to Take In the View

March 5, 2013

What a difference a day at the beach makes!

This week, my friend, Andy, got me out of my house AND my head with a little painting a la 'plein air' style at Montara Beach near Half Moon Bay.

We packed up some paints and a few nibbles and plopped down right in the middle of a gorgeous view.

We packed small canvases, of course, but when Andy pulled out this little wooden palette for me, I just started painting that instead! You all know how much I like painting on, well, pretty much anything better than canvas. I'm not sure why, but I went with it and created my most realistic (and yet, still VERY stylized, of course) painting so far for my painting-a-week challenge.

This is actually, the back side of what I painted at the beach (can you spot the 'front' side in the messy photo?). I used tape instead of torn poster board and decided to let the wood grain be part of the sand pattern. Kind of reverses the perspective so it looks like I'm looking over the sand dune rather than along it, but who cares.