Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Giant Dipper, Santa Cruz

Giant Dipper, Santa Cruz
original oil painting, 12x12 SOLD
Elliott Fouts Gallery

This is my fourth painting of the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is advertised everywhere during the summer in the Bay Area and it's a fun subject to paint.

The Giant Dipper above is a red and white, 1920s wooden roller coaster. It's a fan favorite, located on the beach with an unobstructed view of the ocean. 

I always look for some bold colors to make a strong composition. However, an amusement park has too much bright color and too much stuff. So I have to make decisions about toning down the color, harmonizing the color and simplifying the shapes. To suggest the atmospheric conditions of fog at the beach, in the background I added a little pink, yellow and pale blue color to the sky. Overall, I try to paint the shapes of color as I see them with tonal variations to suggest depth.  

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