Description

Day at the Beach (Seascape Figure Painting)

Day at the Beach is an oil on panel, seascape figure painting of a young woman sitting among the sand dunes of the beach.

She is in a bikini, spending a day at the beach alone with her dog. 

The woman is staring forward, lost in thought in the hazy heat of the day. Her dog amuses itself with a twig behind her. The dog is looking at us, as though we are coming onto the scene. But the woman’s attention is on something in the distance.

Her cell phone lies on the pink blanket beside her, the screen is off. She seems meditative as if this fleeting moment of privacy in the sun is just a temporary escape from a busy world demanding her attention. 

I painted this seascape figure painting en plein air with my easel on the beach. And I painted the model from life, doing a small oil on panel painting as a study. 

I tried to keep the palette nicely balanced with pastel shades of pink, violet, grey-green and turquoise. The bright white sand is glaring in the heat of the day.

There is a feeling of space, but privacy here. The sparkling sea is quite far in the distance and it seems like this beach is completely empty of other people, save for the lone woman sitting in the bright sun, lost in her thoughts.

I enjoy the loose and scratchy brushwork of the dry grasses and the textured paint of the sand and vegetation. I was inspired by the early Impressionist style beach paintings of Monet and Eugène Boudin.

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Damian Osborne

Damian Osborne is a fine artist from Cape Town, South Africa. Taking inspiration from the Old Master traditions, from nature, and from the people around him (especially his wife), he tries to push beyond the mediocre and aim for mastery in his paintings.

Latest posts by Damian Osborne (see all)

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