This stage has been the most frustrating so far as I considered the lower part of the background that depicted or suggested aspects of a beach scene to look too brown. After a day or so pondering and hoping that i would change my mind and like the brown I sought advice from a discerning advisor. We both gave it the thumbs down.

So a careful sanding and application of a veil of transparent white over the brown would fix the problem and allow for a more transparent and slightly more pink/orange overpainting.

 

 

 

 

 

I retained the yellow sunlit sky but carefully scumbled and then softly rubbed on the veil resulting in a bleached area that still allowed for the shape, line and lettering beneath to show through.

The glaze mixture consisted of Pilbara red and golden-yellow both transparent/semi transparent but with any Burnt sienna this time leaving a more orange transparency.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once dry overpainting of figurative and text elements could begin. Lettering was my main concern so I employed as a careful rendition is not my forte. While there are strong linear elements in my compositions I mostly use oil painting sticks which leave a broken line or hatching combined with overpainting or sometimes compressed charcoal integrated into textural areas. Other line techniques include loaded round brush stroke or sometimes just squeezing out paint straight from the tube or making a line from a trowel edge. Or printed lines or string lines lifted from the paint surface or lines painted with the aid of masking tape, anything but hand drawn exact lines that cannot smudge as this painting requires the glaze surface to have as little disruption as possible. Luckily a skilled friend was at hand and  partly sketched in the text “Fairh’ (short for Fairhaven) and drew in some lines that indicated the figure.

I’ve been careful letting it dry before the easier lines and pictorial aspects can be blocked in before further layers strengthen the shapes and images.