It's 84 degrees in my studio right now. The perfect temperature for inspiring me to paint scenes from the beach! (It's also 131.5 degrees on our patio -- that's because the sun is hitting the thermometer -- so my wet towels are getting nice and crispy-dry while hanging out there!)
Here's the photo that's inspiring the sixth painting in my series called WATER. All the others in this series which are still in progress, were too wet to do much work with today. So I spent the majority of my day working on the painting I'm temporarily calling WATER PAINTING #6.
I had already spent a couple of different days working on the sky. I needed to start that ahead of time, because I knew the sky would need to have dried before I could paint the tall grasses in the foreground (which will overlap the sky.)
After touching up the clouds this morning, I began working on the lower half of the painting. First adding a thin coat of tan for the sand...
and then starting the grassy areas. The part that's left white will be fence posts. I'll let this base coat dry for several days and then go back and work on all the grasses. The sand areas will take the longest to dry because the paint contains white (which takes longer to dry than the other colors.)
I have said for years that I have a five-degree range of comfort when it comes to the temperature of my surroundings. My body is most happy when the temperature is between 80 – 85 degrees. I decided to bring a thermometer into my studio today because it felt so warm and pleasant with the windows open, that I was just curious to see what it said.
Sure enough… it’s in the low 80s! And that is just the right conditions for me to be working on a series of paintings from the beach.
