Watching The Tide Go Out

Here is an acrylic painting done mixing three colours. I keep the all my acrylic paints in a box in the spare bedroom and it’s quite heavy. Normally I bring it into my bedroom and use about 2% of them. This time I brought in tubs of yellow, brown and white and they were all I needed. This painting shows a couple of people watching the tide go out.

It’s based on a man and a kid I saw on the beach at dusk. I love running up and down in sand dunes and there are some good ones to get sweaty on at St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast. I’d been playing on them through the day time and got the usual half a kilo of sand in my shoes. Later on, as dusk fell, I got up on the dunes again to enjoy a frothy coffee and bit of tiffin. You don’t see the tide in much so it was brill to see it had just been in. As it went out the evening sun shimmering on the sea and wet sand was mesmerising. I took some photos of the people but they came out too dark when I looked at them later on the computer. Bum.

This painting went well and was soon finished. Keep it simple, I thought, and mixed only three colours. They were all I needed: as the sun descended it stole many colours and the sea and sand shared the same tones. The only break in the colours was a couple – probably a dad and his boy – in big coats stepping backwards and forwards as the waves retreated. The kid had a sort of pointy hat on. I added the dog and ball. I shouldn’t have varnished it as the gloss enhanced the paired-down colours. This painting can be on your wall this time next week for just £6488.

I’ve attached some photographs here showing the remains of the old Pontin’s holiday resort in Blackpool. If you stand on the sand dunes you’re afforded a good view of the site. Sadly Pontin’s which was very popular in the seventies is history.