Come on in the water's lovely!

After the recent headlines about the British Beaches having the best blue

flag records ever, I guess this is quite topical! Pure chance, I made a start on this back in July, however had to put it down as the school hols meant I needed to put on the hat of full-time Mum, of which I have no complaint! After the Summer I've been fortunate to have a good run of commissions so this one was left on the shelf. Now I can finally get back to this, I'm hoping to put it into an exhibition in December.

This started out as an experimental painting, its A3 pastel on pastelmat, not an unusual combo for me, however, I used a gouache wash to create a bespoke coloured pastelmat. I was not sure how the tooth of the pastelmat would handle the gouache wash, the result was, extremely well. My plan now is to work onto it in pastel, I may also try wetting the pastel once on the paper a technique I've yet to try.