Friends had a party in a beautiful garden to celebrate their combined birthdays. It was a chilly, windy day so everybody arrived wrapped up in jackets and shawls. But the sun came out and the weather was beautiful all afternoon.
When I was in California this summer I admired the work of Eugene Boudin in the Norton Simon Museum. He had done some small paintings of figures on the beach–just dabs of paint to indicate faces. So I was trying to do the same with this painting. It’s of course from a photograph but I made sketches and moved figures around to get a better, more simplified composition. (The balloon was not there but a touch of red is often helpful.) I find it much harder to paint at this tiny scale, even with tiny brushes, but I like small paintings.
The Garden Party 6 x 7-3/4 Oil on masonite $100 unframed
