Birch Bay Sketching and Painting

Fresh sea air, wispy clouds, people digging clams, crows, a peaceful day by the sea, just you and me...Birch Bay Trip
Another outing for the day, we headed north about 90 miles to Birch Bay almost to the Canadian border. It's a small quaint town where nothing is happening, and it's nice and quiet. And it has a wonderful park along the length of the beach and forested park area in the hills above the beach, a perfect place to sit and observe, take a walk, just be.

Above is one of my on-scene sketch paintings. For this one I did the sketch first, then laid down the paint over it. Sometimes I paint first and embellish with pen afterwards... this time the people kept moving and so did the crows, and I added a bit more color than the real thing. We do have a few brilliant days here, but often we have that NW gray overcast, and I may not want it to look photo realistic anyway, or sometimes I just like to make it up, imagine something a bit differently than what I'm really seeing.
Below is a photo I took of the same place I painted...
And below is the same Birch Bay beach but looking down the road, and even more colorful. This sketch painting I did in 2006 in my personal journal.
And finally, another sketch while riding along in the car....