Beach Scene WIP - Day 12 - Final Day

Well, she is finally complete .... I did bits of detail work here and there, especially on lightening some of the driftwood pieces behind the little girl, and decided I best stop before I really do overwork this piece!

If you would like to see the step by step slideshow video I made of this piece, you can find it right here ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAlJcBqBEXs

Happy day everyone!

Karen Anne Brady aka IrelandBrady

Beach Scene -WIP - Day 11

Today we needed to drop off Danny Boy at the vets for his semi-annual wellness checkup and needed vaccines ... plus major nail clipping.  So we took advantage and did a bit of shopping ... couple thrift stores, topped off with a visit to the grocery store. 

By the time we got back to the house I had about an hour before we needed to pickup up DB so I did a bit more work on the little girl's face and began working on her hair.  With her hair I put in the shadows and highlights using various browns for the shadows and beige and goldenrod for the highlights.  After that was complete I used dark brown and a light brown ink fine tip illustrations pens to detail the strands of hair. 

Tomorrow I will touch up different parts of the illustration and, hopefully, this colored pencil painting will be completed!

Happy day everyone!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 10

Today was glorious outside!  In the low 80's .... I was so distracted I put very little time into the illustration ... I did mange to finish the jeans and begin working on the hands.

Tomorrow is back down to the low 60's so I'll most likely get a lot more accomplished....

 

Happy Day!

Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 8

I'm finished with the sand area of the scene for now, will probably add more shading once the little girl is finished.  Tomorrow I hope to begin work on her clothing and hands, I am planning to save the face and hair for the last segments of this WIP.

Company for dinner tonight so this will have to be as far as I go today!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 7

I don't know about you, but when I am working on a project my "art" area tends to turn from organized at the onset to utter chaos after several days.  Today I sat down to work on the scene and realized I had over 50 percent of my pencils spread all over the table leaving very little room for me and the drawing.  As you may have surmised by now, I spent nearly two hours cleaning and organizing ... ahhhhhhh ... I now have a fresh start midway through my project. 

Because of this little foray into organization I ended up with less time to devote to the scene than I had originally anticipated.  I did manage to color in the pail, the shovel, the cockle shell and the feather that is lying on the sand, PLUS a bit of sand shading!  We are slowly but surely working our way the to true subject of this little project.....

Here we go for this day's progress ...

 

This bit of mid-way cleaning has refreshed my spirit as well ... that is a good thing!

I don't know about your area of the country, but here in Portland it is raining buckets!  We've also been receiving more than our fair share of high winds ... here's hoping the ground doesn't get so water saturated that one of the large trees comes tumbling down ... especially not on the house!

Happy Day!

Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 6

I was off to a slow start today ... primarily because I was afraid of the sand and how to do it.  So while I was thinking about how to attack the sand I completed the sand dollar leaning against the log.  One of the extra shells I wanted to eliminate kept showing up as a ghost in the sand and I couldn't seem to find a way to color over it without the initial pencil indentations showing through ... so I gave into the shell and put him back into the illustration.  Shell won that round!

I finally decided, Oh Heck!  blending and stippling for the sand just isn't working so I took my goldenrod Prismacolor Verithin pencil and using the side of the lead began making squiggly marks in varying depth of color ... it seems to be giving me the effect I was seeking!  Yes!  I have now laid a base of squiggly golden rod over the entire sand area, I think I am off to a good start there.  I needed to begin the coloring of the sand pail because I kept getting the sand color into the bucket's "space" .... he felt he was loosing ground to the sand and asked that I at least give him a color primer.  He is much happier now ....

You know when you are getting too involved in a drawing when you began to feel empathy for the objects and they begin telling you what they want done!

Til tomorrow - Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 5

Well now, I learned a really important lesson today ... NOT a good idea to do art work with dilated eyes!  I thought a layer of Jasmine would look nice over the beige color - wrong!  Made the sand too yellowish ... I should have pre-tested it on a separate sheet of paper first.  So I walked away from the piece for a couple of hours.

Once my vision started working again I went in and removed as much of the jasmine color as possible with the aid of "Miracle" tape.  Jim had suggested that I put some moss on the driftwood, so I added that to a few of the pieces.  He thought they were too pristine looking as they were and I think it was a good suggestion.

Then I noticed the dents in the paper from one of my earlier funky shells was coming through (a ghost shell) and thought I would disguise that area as a rock.  I may turn the sand dollar into a rock as well, and add a few more stones and small pieces of wood to the scene.
We'll see how I feel about that tomorrow....

Not much to show today ..... I look forward to getting an early start tomorrow!

Happy Day!
Karen Anne

Beach Scene WIP - Day 4

Well today began with a visit to the dentist, followed by "Bills" (ever notice how "rich" you feel before you begin paying your bills, then you slide down into "poor" as the balance slowly decreases...), take Danny Boy for a short walk ... and finally back to my drawing!  Yes!

All of the original driftwood pieces are now complete (I may add more random pieces in the picture and for now I removed the two odd shells on the left side - Jim pointed out they were distracting from the subject and I agreed).  After this I sprayed a light layer of workable fixative over the finished area to protect it from smudging as I begin working on other areas.

Next I used an X-acto knife blade and gently traced around the little girl and her sand castle, removed the excess fisker masking plastic and exposed the beach area; leaving the little girl still protected with the remaining fisker. 

In this newly exposed area I began by laying down a light layer of beige over all the areas that are sand.  I am keeping a list of the colors I use for the sand so that when I work on the sand castle I'll remember the colors used in the sand, otherwise the little castle might turn out a completely different color.  I plan to use quite a bit of stippling in the sandy area to give the impression of sand.

So, for today we now have .....

 Happy Day!
Karen Anne Brady

Beach Scene WIP - Day 3

Most of the driftwood has now been completed, just the large piece behind the little girl and a small piece sticking out from under remain unfinished and they should be completed tomorrow.  I did manage to work in the ocean and blend it into the sky, and I think I'll keep it!  I have never before attempted ocean waves but these look pretty good to me, glad they were distant waves!

Guess you can now see that I am pretty much committed to sharing this work in progress with all of you.  I want to thank all you for your input and encouraging me to do so.  Gosh, I certainly have some really nice friends!

Happy Day!

Karen Anne Brady 

PS  Did you notice the extra piece of driftwood that I added to the pile??? 8~D

Beach Scene - WIP - Day 2

On this day I took the tracing paper drawing and transferred it to Stonehenge paper (size 9" x 12") with the aid of my trusting, old, dependable light table.  This time I used a terra cotta color pencil to transfer the drawing, it's a bit on the pale side but at least this color will not interfere with the colors I add.

Over the area with the little girl and the sand I placed a sheet of clear fisker plastic, so that I won't be rubbing off skin oils or smudge that part while I am working on the driftwood pieces portion.  I am deviating from the colors in the photo because I like all the different hues and tones of driftwood (I love to collect odd twisted pieces of driftwood when I'm at the coast ... they remind me of beautiful works of art created by Mother Nature).  Some pieces are relatively new and hold some of their original color, whilst other pieces have turned wonderful shades of grey and whitened in light of the sun.   Others have been used in relation to a cozy beach fire and display charred pieces of varying degrees of charcoal and deepest black.  They are each, like us, unique in their shapes, forms and degrees of character.

I began with the first piece of wood and traversed across the page until six pieces have been completed.  Tomorrow is sure to see the addition of more pieces and perhaps the first indications of the ocean in the background.  I figure if I don't do well on the ocean, I can always turn it into a pile of sand!

Happy day!
Karen Anne Brady