Matanzas Morning

I'm taking a workshop this weekend with Richard Lundgren, at the St. Augustine Art Association. It's a 2-day workshop, and the subject is Painting Water With Pastel. Today was focused on painting water with movement. Tomorrow the focus will be on still water with reflections. I find water a real struggle at the best of times. Naturally Richard's wave demo painting was fabulous, and he made it seem to effortless.

I used as a reference a photo I took one morning at Fort Matanzas, when I went there with the Audubon Society to post the least tern nesting sites. It was a lovely morning at the beach. But doing this painting was definitely effortFUL and I'm still not sure what I think of it. I don't love it, that's for sure. Water is still a struggle for me. But I have to keep trying if I'm ever going to learn it. As one of the other women in the class said, "well that's what we're here for".

And it was fun. It's only the second time I've ever tried to paint a wave. The first was in a workshop with Maggie Price a couple years ago. 

Done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum paper, various pastels.