Sunday July 12 2026
It’s Helen’s birthday! And I practice en plein air.
This painting was ordered by my mother. She was disappointed I had started painting it because she didn’t like the flowers in the pot - they were stand-ins. So I had to pump up the indigos. She wanted me to include daisies but I had to draw the line due to the nature of the exercise.
Those daisies (I added the neon and the darks after coming home)
At the beach:
too much color!!
so thick those lines
booooo
kind of fond
hate this
I like the color
purple why not
pencil clouds
these (in my eyes) not successful works led me to think about how at the beach, I think to capture the way the beach feeeeeeeels, you have to delete one section and have it stay white - either the sand, the sky or the water.
examples:
I did this yesterday after having this thought - no sky color
very faint blue wash on the sand
not quite there but beach twilight - the water is the brightest part
last week I did this and i’m like why do I like the first version so much better? it feels BLEACHED which is how the beach feels to me
I prefer this one
wish I could delete that sand
