Beach Fantasy #2 (redone)

This morning when I went to the studio, I was REALLY unhappy with my second painting. The sky was dull and boring and I didn’t like the composition very much. So I decided to see what I could do with it. I began by stepping outside with a sturdy bristle brush and getting rid of the sky!  I didn’t get back to the real red of the surface, but there was enough there to give me the idea of going darker in the sky, I got out my lovely red violets and then added some grayed blue greens and a hint of light shining through, changed the color of the water and did a lot of other things!  I began by darkening the values of the grasses and the evergreens. I decided to make the trees at right be a solid shape of blue violet and used a little darker red violet in the smaller trees at the back. I got rid of the flowers on the bushes and played with color, trying to darken a bit without brushing down (always a challenge!).  This is no masterpiece (I won’t be entering it into the PSA show!), but I think it will be framed and entered with its companion in my October show at Waverly Street Gallery.  This exercise of working without any guide whatsoever is fun and a good test of one’s knowledge of color theory. But I’m ready to work from life and it’s a beautiful day and my backpack box is ready to go!