I've tackled the beach huts and St James a few times, and I’ve never really landed on a picture that I like. It’s weirdly very hard to paint; the huts are really simple, which is the trap, I think. It’s easy to overpaint them and detract from the energy of the scene and the family beach vibe that’s the focus out there (for me anyway). I’m pretty happy with this attempt, and the figures worked, which is great!
If you haven’t been out to the Venus Pool at Cape Point, it’s definitely worth the trip. I painted a picture from a photo we took of the walk to Venus Pool last year. It’s an incredible landscape, dominated by mountains. It’s easy enough to imagine you’ve teleported away from civilisation!
This one was really fun to paint. I treated myself to a 38.5 x 54.5 piece of Bao Hong Master’s paper (paper really does make a difference) and pulled out my big brushes. It was great to pretty much throw paint on (guided somewhat) and hope for the best. I’m definitely going to do that more often!
On Saturday afternoon we hit the Alphen Trail to try and catch the late afternoon sun and shadow. I also wanted to try out the easel setup I got from Temu. It’s pretty cool, and standing up and painting at an easel does impact the painting process. I’ll definitely keep using it. Plan is to finish this one off during the week, along with a Windmill Beach and Obs scene. It's getting hard to keep up with them all, but I’m definitely finding that painting more helps paint better!