work in progress

Today, I decided that if I was going to paint this picture of the beach, then I had better go back to the beach and figure out the actual colors of the sky and water, and sand. So, I packed up a few tubes of paint, (blue, red, yellow and white), a paint knife, a disposable palette pad, and a few other odds and ends and headed out.  The painting I had started with a sketch(using thinned terra rosa paint) a few days ago was dry and I took it along too.   It was a warmish sunny day, but super breezy out on the sand!! A big difference from the light breeze at home.  There was no one else there.. hahaha... nobody except one person wind surfing out in the water.   I fought with the wind, trying to mix up some colors, and hang onto things so they didn't blow away.  I was sitting in the sand, and low enough where the wind was blowing the sand into the paint on my palette, and it collected on everything... then it clouded up, and once the sun went in, it felt very chilly... I just laughed, and thought of all the artists, past and present, who had probably dealt with these same kinds of things.  How do they do it?!!

It was a good experience tho, the colors I mixed were nothing like what I would have mixed just looking at the photo at home.   I didn't stay long, just about an hour,  long enough to get an idea of color. Once the sun went in, things looked a bit different.  The sand was the hardest to match,  I don't think I ever really got it down.   Here is a picture of my sketch so far, with the palette I had taken to mix paint on.