The South African Artist – July 2019

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STEP 3: SKY DETAILS

The light halo of sunlight around the clouds is stylised to create more
flat shapes. Titanium White and Azo Yellow Medium are perfect for
this warm colour. Brush the paint on nice and thick with a number 8
flat brush. A tip is to mix more than enough paint on your palette. You
do not want to run out of paint and have to keep mixing the correct
colour when you want a similar colour block or shapes.

STEP 4:
Now block in the rest of the clouds. I have added a little Magenta and
Blue to bring in a violet tint to the body of the main cloud. A few bright
marks here and there to suggest small clouds help to break up some
negative space in the sky. Then the distant dunes are painted in a cool
green. I still like to include aerial perspective cues so cool colour and
receding shapes remain important.

STEP 5: SEA AND MIDDLE GROUND
Sky Blue with a touch of Yellow Lemon make a nice colour to block
in the sea. The distant and middle distant beach areas are painted in

using Titanium White and Azo Yellow Medium.

A touch of blue and more white cools the

distant beach on the top right. More yellow

warms it up as the beach curves around to

the middle distance. A little Yellow Ochre

darkens the sand colour near the water to

suggest wet sand.

STEP 6: FOREGROUND ACTION

First off I painted in the brown block where

I anticipated painting the rocky beach. Then

the simplified breaking waves with Titanium

White paint and a touch of yellow to catch the

sunlight.

This approach of laying in impasto needs to

be done carefully when painting wet into wet.

Hold the brush gently between your thumb

and four fingers with the brush parallel to the

canvas. In this way, you can gently “butter on”

the paint over the wet layers. On the beach

itself I quickly reached for the painting knife

to get in some juicy thick paint. Magenta and

Azo Yellow Medium warm up the foreground.

STEP 7: DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

Well, I enjoyed the painting knife effects in the foreground so much

I decided to paint over the area reserved for the rocks. Overall I

thought the direction lines created by the swathes of paint were more

appealing. Keep in mind that the painting knife can make big broad

strokes too. This is the effect I wanted here. Not thin knife lines. Fat

juicy paint shapes in the foreground is the whole idea.

STEP 8: FINAL STROKES

A couple of figures loosely painted in add scale and life. A little

impasto in the middle distance for harmony with the foreground. The

main cloud looked a little thin so I squeezed some white onto the

canvas and spread it around with the painting knife. The end result is

a fun and colourful painting. Not my typical approach, but I must say

it is a pleasure to relax and paint something like this. This approach

is relatively simple for beginners to try. Take a few risks and use

generous paint strokes. Enjoy!

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