Cumulus and Lake Gerar

"Cumulus and Lake Gerar, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware."  Rehoboth Beach and Lewes, DE are so different from most mid-Atlantic Coastal beach towns precisely because the downtown areas are still SMALL TOWNS with small town atmosphere. Lake Gerar is about 4 blocks off of Rehoboth Avenue and just behind the last boardwalk block of the beach. This pastel painting is one of my smaller works, only 16" x 24," It is one of several paintings of the lake I hope to complete based on a set of 87 photographs taken in July of this past summer. It is part of the WATERWORKS exhibit I hope to put together and show in 2011 - 2012.

Father and Son Day at the Beach

So, after struggling with this image for a month, I fix it in humid weather like a dummy. Now it has little tiny dark gum balls all over it. I will have to spend an hour at a time cleaning and reworking it during the next 2 to 3 months while working on other projects. The moral of this mess is to never do anything in a hurry. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!

The drawing is 44" long x 30" high and is based on several photographs of the thousands taken on South Florida beaches. Two of the seagulls were in one photo, The sailboat in another, the father, son and chair in still another, and the sky is from still another photograph. All photographs are my own. The color is applied with individual pastel strokes rather than the standard rub and blend layering technique. Even blended areas are done with the pastel itself as the blending tool. This technique allows me to produce pastels of greater color intensity.

Blue Blue Water

I’m not entirely happy with this one.  I thought it might be cool to have the two women looking off the left side of the picture plane and I tried to balance attention with the boat near the middle of the drawing and the guy on the other side of the picture plane looking slightly to the right of center.  I’m thinking about rubbing the women out, and redoing them in a reversed position so that they are looking directly at the boat.  Never the less that will be in the future.  Opinions Yes or no change, are welcome.

Meanwhile, I’m moving on to the next drawing.

Beach Sounds?

The latest pastel painting is based on a combination of 2 photographs, the first shot in South Florida last year on the most perfect day I’ve ever spent on a beach. The second was of a young man wired for sound on the beach in Cape Henlopen, Delaware about 5 or 6 years ago. He had a CD player, but I changed it to an iPod because the CD player looked so bulky and old fashioned. I also changed the guy’s bathing suit, head and facial features based on several other photos of beach people so he would not be recognizable. I’ve spent a month on this drawing, so I’m happy to be finished. I think it should be named “Beach Sounds,” but I’ve not decided. I’ll take suggestions, and if I use your title, I’ll make a small pastel drawing just for you.