Lady In Red

by Peggy
(Coos Bay Oregon)

this has been a work of joy and trial and err....
the original photo I took at Yachats, it was a cold windy day and the waves had a lot ove spray blowing back. The had a greenish color that day and I took many pictures. As we were leaving I walked over the rocks, well crawled actually...lol there was a lady in a really bright red dress leaning on a rock near the ripples in the surf, never saw her face but that dress really caught my eye as very different there in the rock next to the sea...
I took a quick picture as I left the area, showing only her back. At home when I looked at it closer I knew I wanted to paint it, soooo.....
24x36 canvas, drew in the wave I wanted, placed the rocks on the right side, and took rocks from another area, added more to them and placed the lady in red on them over looking the wave.... then I wanted more drama to go with the red dress so put in a sunset that I took from my front yard, did the sky in a light gray scale and filled in the color with many glazes, orange, yellow, burnt sienna and a touch of blue and green to deepen it.
Kept the water soft and moody to add to the mystery of the lady, added the golden highlights in the water, on her dress a touch in the foam and on the rocks. The painting took a week to paint and the same size lady in red number two is on the canvas with begining gray tones.
A different area of Yachats and a different sky, am thinking maybe a couple of sunsets, moonlights and a storm...We are going back up to Yachats in a couple of weeks with both our cameras and the video camera.