Outdoor Painting - The Large Painting Project

At the beginning of August 2022 I was offered a fantastic commission to do a large outdoor painting for a private garden. It happened to coincide with my time at East Beach Studios  in Worthing and worked out perfectly; the theme was given it was to be the 'Seaside'.

I have lived by the sea most of my life and feel very lucky to live so near to it but also to have grown up with the idea of the 'seaside'. The British seaside in summer is always busy in Brighton, people come from London for the weekend to party and sit on the beach and eat ice creams.

I now live further west along the coast and enjoy a big sandy beach at low tide, a quieter side of the seaside, and have taken up all year round sea swimming. Living next to the sea has become part of me and so it has been interesting to think about what the seaside means in visual terms.

The project is unusual, the size of the 3 paintings measure in total 4.8m x 60cm so very long and thin. I have started to work on drawings and the computer to get a rough idea of what it could look like.

Here are some of the figures that will be in the mural, these are painted at the actual size in acrylics.

Unfortunately my studio is just 30cm too short to accommodate the full length of the drawings, so I am having to go slightly around the corner! 

The three paintings will link together to make one long piece which will be situated above a newly landscaped area full of mainly foliage plants (not yet started in the photo)

Early stage draft drawing idea which is changing all the time as I work on it more

The next phase is for the panels (specially treated wood on aluminium frames) to arrive. Then the drawing can be transferred to the panels. It is many hours work ahead but very enjoyable.

At the present time there are about 23 or so figures in the whole piece! If you would like to follow along with the progress you can on Instagram @janedenmanartist