Back to the Beach

As many of you probably already know, one of the new galleries that now represent me is the JoAnne Artman Gallery in Laguna Beach, California. Laguna Beach is, well, a beach town, so I thought it would be a good idea to paint beach themed images for my upcoming featured artist show in October. It is a theme that I am very familiar with since I did a summer themed show last year for my Portland, Oregon solo show, which included many images of bathing suit clad people. People seem to get a kick at seeing bathing suits from the 40s and 50s and it has always been a popular theme in my paintings.

Here is the latest painting that I started today. It is an image of a father and son looking at tide pools. It is still in a very rough stage but I think it will be a pretty nice piece when completed. The panel is 24" x 30".

I am not sure how much of the background I will include. I am wondering how well the painting will read as a tide pool scene if I don't include some of it. Plus, there's the issue of the boy's left hand looking like it is floating. His hand is actually resting on some rocks but I don't want to include too much of the background since that goes along with my other pieces. It will be interesting to see what happens once the figures are done. I am going to leave the background blank until then so I can see how the figures interact with the  starkness before I make any decisions.