Coney Island Mondays: The Sky Reflects

One year later…

Unless it is raining, it doesn’t take much for us to hop on the F train and get to Coney Island in under 25 minutes. Every Monday, we’ll be standing in line at Nathan’s on the boardwalk within an hour, and then walk the surf toward Sea Gate where the beach becomes wide, quiet and quite beautiful.

2013: Sol at Coney by Sea Gate

What did I know a year ago when I picked up some old Arches paper and some new watercolors and tackled a beach scene for a large painting? It’s like young kids and iStuff: put them in front of it and they will figure it out without asking any questions. It just happens.

And so it has been with for me when attempting a seascape done from photos that I take at Coney. Spend a little time on the drawing, then just tackle it with lots of water and pigment, and don’t sweat it too much. Of course, now there’s a year’s worth of experience, classes and workshops to help figure it out. The bottom right beach was painted by pouring the paint instead of brushing, a great technique learned in a recent workshop. If you are a painter, try using Magic Eraser to gently remove paint from unwanted areas—it really works!

Still don’t have a clue about how to paint the ocean…

August 2014
Watercolor and graphite
Arches cold press, 300 lb, 16″ x 21.5″

17 Aug This entry was published on August 17, 2014 at 4:03 pm. It’s filed under beach painting, Home, landscape, seascape, Summer, Uncategorized, watercolor and tagged art, beach painting, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Coney Island Mondays, painting technique, reflections, watercolor. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.