Hello everyone! Today I am going to share how I painted this beach and surfboards scene using water colour. It took about a week for me to finish it. The video that inspired me to paint this is by Lindsey (thefrugalcrafter). Click here to check her video out. I did make some changes and used different colours for certain parts of my painting so mine looks a little different than hers.
Tools and Materials
- A good quality artblock that can absorb water
- Buncho water colours
- 2 round brushes (a small and a medium)
- 2 containers of water (one to mix paint and one to clean brush)
- A palette to mix paint
- A mechanical pencil with 2B lead
- Tissue to absorb excess paint/water
Method
This is my drawing. I used a larger paper compared to my other artworks because this painting has some details and for it will be easier to add details when use water colours on a large piece of paper compared to a small one. I drew based on her model picture and I used grids as guide to get the proportions right. I used a Hb pencil to draw as it is a hard pencil so it doesn't smudge into my artwork when I paint it.
I painted the sky first using a light blue. I mixed the dark blue on the highest sky areas to create a larger space.
By the way, this is my workspace :D
I painted the sand on the ground in golden brown. I also mixed small amounts of green and darker brown in a few areas.
I added more dark brown especially outside the changing room so it looks distinct like a lifted ground.
I painted the sea in blue. I kept the part close to shore light so that I can add another colour later.
I painted the wooded parts of the changing room. I did this in about two layers. It is important to let the background to completely dry before adding details like the little lines I added here. I did the same to the fence area where the surfboards are leaning against.
Then, I started painting the changing room. I picked pink and yellow for this as the other colours like blue and green are going to be dominant in the painting by the end of it. I started with yellow first because it is lighter than pink and continued with pink after the yellow parts have dried to prevent mixing the colours.
While waiting for the changing room to dry, I painted the others like the tree trunks of coconut trees and some leaves on one of the trees. I also painted the first layer of colours on the surfboards. I added some green to the sea water as the water closest to the shore looks greenish due to the sand particles underneath and lower absorption of sunlight. In the end, I added some shadows at the edges of each colours of the changing room.
I added some details on the leaves of one of the trees by mixing some brown and red to green to create different shades of it. I used yellow for highlight areas. I painted the coconuts and started to paint the other tree as well.
I completed the rest of the painting by adding more details on the coconut tree leaves and adding more colours to the fruits. I also added details on the tree trunks. I added some grass on the ground. I also added more black on the dark area of the changing room. Finally, I added more colours on the surfboards to make them look more vibrant and I mixed different colours to create some shadows and highlights. This is the completed painting. I finished it at night and waited until the next day to take a picture of it under the natural sunlight which is why the colour appears better here just like the first snap after painting the sky.
Thank you for reading my long post and I hope that you find it helpful or at least entertaining. Have a great day ahead!