Recipe for Three Figures on the Beach. (Brancaster, Norfolk)

Here's another recipe for a painting.
This I painted from a quick drawing on the beach, but it looks nothing like the sketch !

Copyright Mary Kemp. Three Figures on the Beach.
Oil on canvas panel 40 x 40 cms.

I know it's figures on the beach again. Somehow I'm not done with that subject yet, and ideas get renewed with each seaside visit. We're off there again soon, but I don't think I'll be drawing girls in shorts somehow.

RECIPE.

Ingredients:

Sketch and a few photos.

40 x 40 canvas panel.

Watercolour pencil.

Assorted brushes (see photo). To be honest apart from the Pro Arte Sterling range, which I use both filbert and long flat of, I don't know what the rest are called.

Palette knife.

Oil paints : cobalt blue, ultraviolet blue, cerulean blue, buff titanium, Naples yellow, cadmium yellow, titanium white, Venetian red, cadmium red and burnt sienna.

Odourless turps. ( For cleaning)

Gamsol, odourless spirit. ( This is expensive so I only use it for mixing with paints)

Galkyd, an alkyd medium. Speeds up drying time.

Windsor and Newton Liquin Impasto. For texture.

Ingredients.

Method:

I worked out the composition. Scribble on a napkin type of thing, a lot of it still in my head. I don't always paint in such an unplanned way but the idea was quite clear in my mind so I wanted to get on with it.

On the canvas I drew the main components in a watercolour pencil which is easily taken out with a damp cloth but does not dissolve in oil based paints.

Next comes a ground of fairly dilute ultramarine violet with a touch of Venetian red, transparent enough for the drawing to show.

Drying time.

I then added the stripes of the sand , sea and sky, using brushes for the sea and sky, and a palette knife for the sand. I also added Liquin Impasto to the sand colour for added texture.

I roughly blocked in the figures but felt that at that stage it was best to leave it to dry so as not to spoil the freshness of the background by smudging it.

Several days later everything was ready for the next phase.

The flesh colour was an ever changing mix of titanium white, Venetian red, burnt sienna, Naples yellow, ultramarine violet and cobalt blue. After that the figures fell into place fairly quickly, although I changed the colour of the girl's t shirt on the left from yellow to green to blue to violet.

My favourite bit is the red shorts and waist strip on the middle figure which I first painted dark blue and then roughly overlaid with red.

Here's the link to buy.