Beach Babies~commission

I wanted these children to relate more to each other within the scene, possibly by connecting their shadows or their footprints in the sand. I drew a rough sketch of the background on a sketch pad, then each child separately on small bits of tracing paper so I could move them around and try different placements. It was a little like playing paper dolls. By bringing the boy closer to his sister and lowering his position his left hand 'fit' into her right hand perfectly. Issue solved.

The reference photo

I've received a commission to paint this adorable scene of two siblings, a sister(age 3) and her brother(age 14 months) enjoying a day at the beach. Even though I've only painted one child(a portrait) and I've never painted a beach scene, how could I resist this? I have until Christmas to complete this commission so I plan to take my time and hopefully do these babies justice.

New Easel!

I just bought my very first easel! What(?!) you say? Truthfully, I probably would still be propping my work up against a wall or on boxes to work but after finishing my drawing of the peacock orchids I realized there was no way I could handle this large of a format without an easel. I found a great deal at Jerry's Artarama on a Renoir tabletop model (link). It cost about half what some of the tabletops I looked at were priced and Jerry's was even having a sale on the usual sale at the time. Got this for $39.99 US. I always miss sales so I was delighted to have caught this one. It just arrived this past Friday and I love it. It has a storage drawer with adjustable partitions, weighs practically nothing and will adjust to angles 0°-90°. Perfect for watercolor.