Santa Barbara Boardwalk Study

Oil on arches paper; study of a boardwalk early morning of a beach in Santa Barbara. I took many photos of the area while visiting my daughter who goes to college at Westmont. I'm currently working on the larger 18x24 gallery wrap canvas studio version for a show in October from my study here. My vision is to capture the warmth of the scene so I have chosen a palette of Transparent Earth Orange, Yellow Ochre, Indian Yellow, Naples Yellow, Grumbacher Red, Ultramarine Blue and Viridian. I prepped the canvas with warm tones first as my underpainting first.

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Comment by Jeri McDonald on October 10, 2016 at 6:44: Hey guys and gals! Thanks for the nice words of encouragement and critique Michael. I hear ya on the texture (lol). I got carried away with it! I do know that it is supposed to be for the closer parts of the painting but sometimes I like to play on my studies to see what it might look like. I know some artists make everything textured but I do agree it's too much. I have almost finished my larger study. I do have to make adjustments on it though before posting. Waiting for it to dry. I experimented with different color umbrella and wish I had stuck the study colors on that umbrella. So I I will paint over it after it dries. I tried not to put too much texture in my clouds on the larger one, but messed up and kept painting more over it trying to get the cloud shadows right. So it is too late now to scrape off the paint. I was hurrying to enter it into a show.

Comment by Glenys Jones on September 21, 2016 at 19:28: some lovely areas in this Jeri, very appealing.

Comment by Michael J. Severin on September 20, 2016 at 4:49: Looks pretty good Jeri! Suggest that in the larger version you will be doing, that you do not put so much texture in the sky (clouds) ... save that really thick paint for the ground plane stuff. Light texture in the sky will push the sky further back and thicker paint in the mid and foreground will pull those forward more. In the larger piece you will need to further resolve the figures and relate that whole shape (figures and umbrellas) to the space that it is occupying with the other elements .. but you probably already know that. :) Make sure the little wall on the right receives more warm reflected light. I would like to suggest that when you paint your larger studio piece, that you begin with your focal point .. the group of diners and the umbrellas ... nail that down (that whole shape should be larger, BTW .. use the figure on the right as your guide, he/she seems to be the correct size, but the dining figures and umbrellas in relation are too small) ... finish it completely . leave no doubt it is the focal point ... THEN .. proceed outward from that ..subordinating everything to the focal point. Remember, at the focal point, you will have your hardest edges, most intense color, strongest contrasts, lightest lights and darkest darks, etc. Use that to judge everything else. Looking forward to seeing the larger piece! :)