Thursday, August 2, 2012

Another Country, Another Beach Umbrella

There must be something about a beach umbrella that makes me want to take photos of them and/or paint them.  First there were the ones I saw, photographed and drew last month in Italy, which I shared with you here.

Then last weekend, I spent some quality time on another beach - in Ontario.  Lots of people had umbrellas on this beach and some places were more crowded than others. 


Lucky for us, we were situated in the less crowded part.  My cousins picked out a spot and set up our umbrellas.

In front of the family boathouse.

In addition to the blue striped umbrella, there was also a yellow umbrella of a certain vintage.  I'm pretty sure it used to have a fringe, but that has disappeared over time.  And I think my grandmother also used to have a tablecloth made out of the same material!

As I sat underneath, enjoying the shade of the yellow umbrella, I just had to get my paints out and play around.  First I put some colours on the page and sprinkled sand and water over top, just to see what sort of effect I would get (Diana Trout did this in Italy, I thought it was a cool idea!)

Then I painted the striped umbrella.

Here's how both pages look, with the beach and the water (utterly calm that day) providing the perfect background.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lovely!!
Reminds me of childhood summers at Jones Beach (on Long Island, NY).

Stanley Weith said...

Wow, the umbrellas look fabulous. And your painting is actually spot on, very vibrant and shows the fun of what’s left behind of summer.

http://www.idealpatioumbrellas.com/