Seascapes

Beach Scenes

On the facing page are two contrasting beach scenes. One, with breaking surf, the other with the receding tide and calm. In the upper picture, I first painted the sky and background—the background, of course, meaning the sea itself where the water breaks against the rocks. Here, Maskoid would be very useful to cover the whitecap area of the waves and the mat knife can be used for the bits of spray (see page 97).

In the second picture, use a warm color for the sand, taking it right down to the first line of foam. Then where the wet area of the sand first appears, put a colder wash over the first wash in the broken line indicated and carry that right down to the foam. Third, for the wetter sand, use an overlay of the same color deeper in value.

Beachcomber

This picture was painted on the coast of California a few miles south of San Francisco. The curious jutting rock formations on the California coastline, coupled with the iridescence of the sand and water make this a picture of violent dramatic contrasts.      The tiny size of the beachcomber against          the massive structure of the rock, and the sweeping motion of the sky and water gives one a sense of the vastness and majesty of nature. The unique part of this picture in execution is that practically all of the white areas that you see in the water were scraped out with a mat knife.

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