I needed a break from failing at painting koi – and starting to hate watercolor – so I decided to try something.

I use masking a lot and I was wondering how it would look to build texture by laying down a wash, masking, laying down darker color, masking, etc. I thought sand on the beach might be a good way to do this.

I roughed out a line of surf trailing over the sand with Fineline Masking Fluid. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the sand. I use the Daniel Smith Dot Cards for planning pretty much every painting.

I find them essential as the pigments are not just printed on but you can try a bit to see how it blends with other pigments. The cards also serve as my inventory as I check off which ones I already have. And sometimes they save me from buying a new color that looks good on Amazon but different in real life on the dot card.

I also have used some scrap watercolor to lay the different pigments in each family – here is my brown/ochre card.

I think I started with a light wash of Piemontite here. It’s a color I have not really used but I have seen others who did wonderful things with it.

I wanted it darker near the surf’s edge as if wet sand. After the first wash dried, I masked more tiny dots then another wash of pigment on top of that. The next layer was Goethite – a brown ochre.

Building up layers of sand in watercolor

In other paintings, I have mixed Goethite with Hematite Burnt Scarlet to create brownish shadows. It is like mixing a gold tone with a wine tone and I like the effect, so the next layer – after putting on another layer of masking dots – was the scarlet.

In the end, not sure this effect is worth the time and effort. Layer of pigment, wait for it to dry, layer of mask, wait for it to dry, etc. But it was fun to try. Here’s a detail-

Next is painting the surf. In the foam, I wanted it to look like you could see the beach under the shallow water, so I used the Hematite Scarlet and Goethite again. A little weird but just trying things here. The water is Mayan Blue (the dark blue) with Terra Verte and a little Jadeite. The pink reflections are Potter’s Pink.

I wanted little glints of light on the water so I went in with more mask near the horizon – just little dots.

For some of the wave details – I am not good at painting fine lines – so I use an oil painting brush to just do slashes in the water.

And then the sky. I still don’t know how to paint a sky. I just dive in and hope for the best. I did a wash of cerulean blue then took a damp watercolor sponge to lighten the middle area and brushed in Potter’s Pink. On the right side, I dabbed in just a little ochre. Sponged that down a bit and tried to get it all to blend. Sometimes it works.

So in the end, not the best, not the worst but at least it is not a bad Koi fish.