Stormy Seas

The above piece started as a basic watercolor wash and has been sitting waiting to be finished for a while.  I'm still a novice at water-coloring but think this came out pretty good, love the soft green blue on the left side with a contrast of darker blue on the right.  I used a fan brush to add the streaks of rain.  Confession time, if you look closely you can see a reddish streak behind all the rain.  It was one of those oops moments, sigh.  Now that I've added the streaks of darker blue though it looks more like a continuation of the the shoreline off into the horizon. Yeah!!

The girl looking off into the distance and the sea gulls are from Beeswax stamps, the sailboat is a from PSX stamp.  I used Prisma pencils and OMS to color the images but the white pencil did not hide the blue color underneath the birds though so I ended up using white acrylic paint to color them instead.  Much better and as a bonus it gives them some texture.

The seashells in the bottom right and the sunglasses on the top left are pre-made die cuts from my stash.  I purchased them from a dollar store many years ago and decided to alter them some starting with the sunglasses.  I added VersaMark ink and clear embossing powder to the "glass" area of the die and put it into the freezer.  When I took it out I was able to crack the embossed area and then use a sponge with black ink to lightly go over the cracks to make them stand out more.  While I waited for the sunglasses to be ready to take out of the freezer I got started on the beach area of my picture.

The original picture did not have a beach foreground, it was sky and sea only and I wanted a sandy beach.  I grabbed a jar of Deco-Arts sandstone acrylic paste from the shelf and mixed a couple of drops of Ranger Tea Stain Distress ink to alter the color from off white to a golden "beach" color. Now I had a beach foreground that not only was the right color but had the look and feel of sand.  I then glued the seashell die onto the bottom corner and then added a little bit of the acrylic sand paste over the die to help it blend into and become a part of the scene.

The last things I did was to write my journal line and add some white acrylic for highlights.  I painted with a toothpick to create waves/swells in the stormy area of the picture and a small round brush to add watered down white acrylic paint on the beach for sea foam.  I hope there are no storms on your horizon and your summer is full of smooth sailing instead.