In this painting I wanted to highlight the beautifully soft pastel colors of the sky and beach dunes when you turn away from the sunset. Here you can see the distant clouds lit up and the gradient of color in the sky.
My technique to create these smooth colors and soft shadows in the sand was many layers of paint over an underpainting in earth tones. I particularly enjoyed the painting the shadows and warm highlights of the middle ground dunes. Each blade of grass was created using a small liner brush.