Here's the first very rough sketch illustrating the scene at the beach as called for in the story.

The main character, the boy, is sitting bored and waiting while his big sister chats with some friends at the snack bar.

The sketch is refined... drawing on layers of tissue paper.

I didn't like the look of the proportions in the layout.. so using Photoshop I clipped out the three main groups, the boy, the group of girls and the snack bar and rearranged them all.

I brought the boy into the foreground, made him bigger and pushed the girls and snack bar into the background reducing their size. Thank you Photoshop!

Using a light box, I trace the drawing onto watercolor paper using a variety of pencils. I use three different colored pencils for a rough stippled line... and a mechanical HB pencil for tiny details.

This is a last chance to refine parts of the drawing.

I keep the line light at this point... it will all get touched up as a final step after the painting.

At this point I bring out details with touches of halftone ink... and maybe lighten some areas with a kneaded eraser.

The underpainting... done in a brown & grey tone. I find this color mixes naturally into all tones... unlike using a shade of blue for underpainting, which can turn a yellow into an awful green and do funny things to flesh tones.

The reason I choose rough watercolor paper is to bring out the texture in both the pencil line and the painting. It's fun to use a dry-brush technique of scrubbing the nearly dry brush on it's side in circles. Details appear like magic.

Now the painting begins...

I usually paint in the basic background colors first... since any process of choosing colors is a balancing act. I like to set the background colors first.

I like adding gradients within the larger areas... mixing a little pink into one part of the sand... some orange into another area.

Slowly the other colors are added.

Generally I like to keep most of the colors neutral and subdued... with a minority of the color at a higher value and just a few highlights of very bright color.

Painting is like tuning a piano or stringed instrument.. one color influences what other colors might be chosen to appear next to them.

I find that picking out the colors is a purely intuitive process for me. I read about artists who can choose a scheme from a color wheel... that's all beyond me.

I always start light and then work darker. It's way easier to make a lighter color dark than to try and lighten up a too-dark color.

And the final version... with all the paint to full strength and a final touching up of the blackline in spots.

One reason I like acrylics so much is that one can sweep washes over areas of color at this point to deepen shadows, simplify areas and generally tie the painting together.

Watercolors would bleed, with the reds and greens just melting beneath such a wash. Also any ink lines applied over watercolor generally bleed like crazy.

I might also add some highlights in gauche at this point.

Here's a closeup of the finish painting. Not perfect by any means. Maybe next time I'll finally get it just right.