Impressionist Art of Nicole Whittaker

The first in the Passing of the Turtle series.
A baby Turtle on his long journey towards the safety of the sea.

A storm disturbs the bay, just as day gives way to night.

Do you dream of lying on a sun kissed beach in a tropical paradise?

I got the idea for this painting from a beautiful photo on the front cover of a greyhound travel magazine. I haven't named it yet, that usually doesn't happen until the painting is finished but it's a woman sitting on a beach meditating.

I started by drawing my design on the canvas with a stick of charcoal. why charcoal? It's easy to rub out without leaving any visible lines.

second step was to cover the canvas in my chosen background colour. I use orange because it gives a nice boost to my colours and makes the whole painting look more alive.

Although you can use oil paint for the background colour and many do, I use acrylic because it dries in a few minutes instead of hours or days (depending on how thin you put it on). Don't worry about mixing the two types of paint, once it's dry you can easily paint the oils over the acrylic.

Just remember that you can't paint acrylic over oil.

I have painted the figure in Windsor & newton flesh tint mixed with a bit of white, this is then rubbed into the charcoal areas the emphasize the shape. The figure's pants are painted in pure white and the beach is painted with a mixture of naples yellow, yellow ocher and white. Less white is added to the mixture to make it progressively darker the closer the beach gets towards the water. The oil colour on the beach is then fanned to create a progressive tone.