Landscape #7

How is this artwork about who you are or what you like?

The beach is my favorite place to go! This thanksgiving my aunt treated us out and rented a beach house at Nags Head. The walk from this house to the beach had only one major obstacle, the stairs. Once you reached them you had to keep yourself from running, you could hear the waves and smell the salt in the air. The reason why I picked this piece for my landscape project was because I love going to the beach and these stairs represent obstacles and a path to where I love to be. I enjoyed this painting because of all the fun I had at Nags Head with my cousins and because of how beautiful it was that day. I really liked painting the sky, it was fun to try making clouds that were similar to the picture.

Did you gain skill with familiar materials?

I have done two other oil painting projects so I knew what to do and what not to do. Adding white to a painting is not always a good idea because with oils it washes out the other colors and the painting isn’t as vivid. I had to use white the whole time though because of the stairs. I also needed to be careful that I wasn’t using white in the grass so the greens and browns weren’t too faded. I learned how to use an oil solvent that watered the paint down so it wasn’t as thick, which helped making straight lines easier.  Overall I gained more practice with doing another oil painting and learned how to blend colors better and add smaller detail to the painting.