Art-A-Fair Huntington Beach 1

"Huntington Beach 1"    SOLD
oil on panel, 2015
5" x 7" (12.7cm x 17.78cm)

Here is a painting currently in my booth at Art-A-Fair and another from my Urban Seascape series. Late afternoon in Huntington Beach, which is south of the previous two Seal Beach from the series. If you look closely it shares the same background of the LA/Long Beach Harbor as the others, the reason I refer to them as urban seascapes.

This was one of those extremely windy days when the sand and ocean mist fills the air and the heavy surf is a continuous unrelenting roar as the waves pound the shore one after another, too much for swimming. It is those conditions that make for a great opportunity to paint the coastal atmosphere which really is the intended subject.
The figures provide the interest in what would otherwise be a simple and too-horizontal composition without them. It's the figures which link the horizontal bands together , a design device I learned from studying the work of Winslow Homer, one of the supreme seascape artists.

As a footnote I will say this is not the best photo and is not showing the warm/cool subtleties or saturation of color. The nearest figure is wearing a cad red coat which is not showing up well and should read with a bit more saturation and the upper left corner should be a cool pure white.317