A Day At The Beach

This weekend, we spent a couple of nights at a condo on Mustang Island near Port Aransas. The sky was mostly gray, and while we did get a few hours on the beach on Saturday morning, later in the day the breeze got uncomfortably cool. All of that is to say that I didn’t get as much sketching time in as I had hoped. But… I did get a couple of things done.

Drawing directly with no preliminary pencil work is an interesting exercise when working on location – and sketching people. I found it was easy to feel rushed, even when the subjects were sitting still. The beach wasn’t terribly busy, so I worked quickly with the subjects I had.

After warming up with the first page, I shifted my focus to a group working on a huge sand fortress. They were mostly wearing either black or white shirts, so I put them in a variety of colors to brighten this scene up.

After going in to Port Aransas for lunch, we ventured back out on the beach in the afternoon. The temperature had dropped a little and with the breeze that was blowing, it became too uncomfortable to stay out. I did take the time to sketch this man slouched in his beach chair with his dog on his lap.  As luck would have it, after I had packed up and folded my chair, he was joined by several companions. I would have stayed, but without a jacket, it had gotten too cold.

Dessert Island Ice Cream is a colorful fixture in Port Aransas. This sketch was done directly with a pen, but I used a reference photo. This place is not just colorful on the outside, it is pretty bright on the inside as well. Of course I took some reference photos.

On this weekend excursion, I found myself looking at subjects from a different point of view. Line work and color have moved to the front of the line. I tried to shoot every colorful structure I saw, and in coastal Texas, there are a lot of them.

Stay tuned.