Soggy Bottom

Several weeks ago, my nephew's wife posted a wonderful photo of her little boy. He is sitting on a dock, looks like he is kicking his feet in the water, and that he's getting pretty wet! Such a boy thing to do...

It made me think of lots of other little children who just love to kick, stomp and splash in any water that is near by. They never seem to even notice that they are getting wet. I love to listen to them giggle and just know that they are having such a great time.

That photo had to be a painting - I asked Olivia and she gave her permission.

This is a pastel painted on sanded paper. I began with a pencil sketch and then a watercolor underpainting.

In the photo, this little guy had on a black shirt. I wanted to give him a little more color. so I changed it to red. That's one of the great things about painting - I can change things around!

I worked on this for a few days, got away from it, came back again... at one point I wiped off a lot of the pastel and began again. I liked it better. It seemed fresher - not heavily coated with pastel. The underpainting could do its job...

"Soggy Bottom"  9x12 pastel

So, the water is coming over the dock and he's got to be splashing - don't you know that he has a soggy bottom!