I painted this beach scene for my Husband for Christmas. 

I finished it on Christmas Eve, just in time to pop it into a frame I had in the studio.  He has always loved the “Woody” car with a surf board on the top.  Living in Southern California, he and our daughter have had a lot of fun spotting them when we are hanging out at the beach.  Green is both of our favorite color, so it had to be a green car.  I think this is the first time I have ever drawn and painted a car.  I finally put the hanging hardware on the back of it this weekend so he can hang it up in his office.

Here are a couple shots of the progress of the painting.

I am just beginning to get the palm trees sketched and painted in..

This is the painting of the beach, I just need to add the car.

With the car sketched in…  I did a pretty detailed drawing in pencil on paper and then did the old-fashioned transfer of scribbling on the back of the paper with charcoal and tracing over my sketch to transfer the line drawing into my painting.  It works great, I also sometimes use white charcoal or soft pastel if I am transferring onto a darker painted surface.  If you mess up you can just brush it off with a paper towel.  Also, if you don’t want charcoal all over the back of your sketch, you can take a photo copy of your sketch and use the copy for your transfer.  I use this process a lot when I want to “Ink” one of my Manga drawings, too.

Wish you a wonderful creative day, Janell