Take a scrap piece of watercolor paper or the back of an old painting for this tutorial on how to paint beach figures. Quickly sketch in pencil your beach figures. No need to be too accurate. (I know that part is tough for me too.) Using a large mop paintbrush load lots of water and watercolor paint into the brush. Start with a flesh color and lay in the figures. Go around the highlights the best you can. I used raw sienna, rose or aliz. crimson and cerulean blue.
Above is the first stage in my watercolor of the beach figures. This was painted quickly, I let the colors bleed together. Don’t fuss with the painting. Add the hair color and bathing suits using strong color less water in your brush for these darks. This will run or bleed less when your brush is mostly paint and less water.
Lay in the sand with raw sienna or similar color. Add the colorful buckets and shadows. See where my yellow bucket color ran out onto the sand background area and I did not fix it. Let everything dry. Do not fuss with the painting.
After it is dry lay in shadows and darks. Add texture by flicking or tapping a wet loaded brush against your hand for a spatter technique. Add seaweed and blue sand shovel. Sign your name.
This watercolor tutorial is a great way to speed up your painting and create more feeling and to capture the essence of a scene. If you liked this post on how to paint beach figures in watercolor pass it on and sign up for my newsletter. If you have any questions or comments use form below.
Thanks for the demo. I have trouble with figures. Your work is great!
Thanks Norman, check out other tutorials under the categories on right sidebar.