Dexter Westbay "Evening on the Coast"

 8.5 x 11 in. , Watercolor, pencils, brushes, November 2024

  The Idea for my artwork, "Evening on the Coast", was inspired by the east coasts calm summer evenings. I wanted to create something that had to do with the coast and water so I created this painting. I also liked how the land in the east is more mountainous, so I created the terrain by the ocean.

I first started out making the body of water. Once I created the outline of the ocean, I outlined where I wanted my mountains. After that, I started to make the small hill and all of the details in the front of the painting, like the rocks and the sandy beach. Finally, I started to paint. I wanted to make the ocean dark, but lighter as it came closer. I also did the same for the mountains, having them be lighter to the bottom of them.  I started painting the sky an orangish color, but didn't like it, so I went to more of a purple, blue-ish color. I used a bunch of different brushes, using water colors, and pencils to trace. 

The artwork's symbolic meaning is to show how calm the east coast is during the night. I want my audience to think about how calm of an enviornment it is, and how peaceful an area can really be. I think what was most difficult for me was having to redo the sky. I started to paint it an orangish color but realized it didn't match the scene, so I repainted it a purple color. This kind of art is realistic. I wanted it to look a lot like something that is in the real world, and I did just that.  What makes it unique is that I used my own colors, not using the actual colors that you would usually see on a regular basis.