#235 & #236 Boy at the Beach, Three Women at the Beach 10/30/19

Just back from a lovely trip to Florida, where we babysat our 15 month old grandson.  That boy is just too adorable!!!  We got home, and I was searching for something to paint....I didn't paint at all while we were down there, so I was itching to do a little something.  I settled on two little easel canvases.  A few weeks back I was at an acquaintance's house for an event, and she had a tiny easel painting in her rest room, an original from what I could tell, of 3 women in swimsuits at the beach, back sides only, so no faces and they were all wearing hats.  It was very interesting, plus it was something I could handle, given that I wouldn't have to paint a face.  I googled "3 women at beach painting" and boom, there it was....at least very similar.  Scrolled down a bit and found some kids at the beach, and this one looked like our grandson, all towheaded and whatnot.  So, these are my takes on the two subjects.  The women were fun, I see now why they are subject matter for painters, what with the curves....butts and waists in this case, and if you're not looking to paint someone specific, they can be anyone at all, as all women come in all shapes and degrees of curves.  In this particular painting I started with a red canvas, sketched it by hand (not in the mood to trace a printout tonight), then did the bathing suits, then the skin, then the hats, then the skyline/water, then the beach.  It went pretty quick and my only hindrance was that the blue used in the suits would bleed into the skin.  I wasn't quite happy with the change in skin tone to show the delineation of the arms vs back vs thighs, but the canvas was too small to worry with it, so I left it.

The boy was also sketched by hand.  The nice part about him being at the water's edge was that his feet and hands were in the water, and not visible....so no need to get a semblance of 5 fingers or toes.  And his face is shadowed, so I only added eyes (in this case eyelids).  This one is only 2 inches by 3 inches, so not much space to play with.  But the water and sky turned out fine.  I worked a bit at the beach, with the reflections of things with only a tiny veneer of water on top of the sand.