Beach Bum by Leada Wood, Texas Artist

Day 10 of Leslie Saeta's 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. Woohoo! I am 1/3 of the way done with this challenge. I started to name this painting Feeling Crabby...but painting brings me such joy I couldn't do it. I know I am very fortunate to work at something I love to do and have the ability to do it.

The crab painting comes with a story...no extra charge.  When our kids were at home we took them to the beach every summer on vacation. We  all like the beach and doing beachy things. One day we decided we would go crabbing. We get the chicken necks, string, nets and hit the beach. Oh my the crabbing was great! We had a big cooler full of crabs but we started noticing they had a funny orangey spongy under bellies . Not knowing anything about crabs we decided that was the way they were suppose to look. A nice man walking on the beach came by and started talking to us so my husband shows him our big haul of crabs. The man said we had several thousand dollars worth of crabs! Come to find out the spongy under bellies were eggs and we had a whole mess of female crabs and it was illegal to catch them when they had eggs. We quickly let the critters go! To this day seeing crabs reminds me of our fun day crabbing on the beach. I especially like the blue crabs and the tiny little sand crabs that skittle quickly across the sand. Aww nothing like spending time at the beach!

"Beach Bum" by Leada Wood ©2014

Fun In The Sun by Leada Wood, Contemporary Texas Artist

 

FUN IN THE SUN by Leada Wood Copyrighted 2013
DO NOT COPY!
www.leadawood.com/blog  or  www.leadawood.com

 

 

I love to go to the beach! Texas has 600 miles of shoreline so there are plenty of beaches to choose from. Our family favorite for years has been Port A and we try to get there 3 or 4 times a year. We would go more often but it is an 8 hour drive from where we live. Before we discovered Port A we enjoyed going to Crystal Beach.

When we are at the beach I enjoy watching the brown pelicans fly up and down the shoreline. They were nearly extinct at one time but are back in great numbers. We also swim, play in the sand, hunt sea shells, go crabbing, fishing and eat lots of fresh shrimp! I also take lots of pictures of everyone and make mental notes of what would make a good painting. We also find plenty of time to relax and enjoy the tranquility of the splashing waves and screech of the sea gulls. It seems the sea breeze has a way of blowing all stress away and keeping you on island time.

I am very thankful for the good times I have had with my family at the beach having fun in the sun!