Adding Some Life to a Landscape Painting

'Waiting for a Bite'                  12x9               pastel             ©Karen Margulis
available on Etsy $175 click here to purchase

This painting has all the challenges. How about a seascape with waves and a sandy beach? Add a figure fishing and then add a bird! I have had the reference photo for years but was intimidated to paint it. This month I have pulled out all of my candid people photos and have been slowly tackling them. The incentive is our Patreon focus this month on adding people to our paintings. There is nothing like diving into a topic and pushing yourself to try new things!

The tricky part of this painting was deciding what to paint first.....the seascape /background or the fisherman and the bird? If I painted the stuff behind the figures I might cover the figure too much. If I painted the figures first and made them just right I would be afraid to ruin them with the background and might not get close enough. That would leave a halo effect around the figures. My solution?

I paint the background first and pulled it slightly into the figures. I was then able to paint the figures and add layers on top of any stray background.
 (see the complete demo on my Patreon Page www.patreon.com/karenmargulis )


Have you tried shaving pastel? I shaved a bit of white pastel and pushed it into the paper to paint some spray on the waves!