Behind The Scenes: Beach Bar (Patreon)

I've started working on my latest piece the same as always. Checked the list, picked some candidates and thought about what felt best in the moment. As I was pondering about few ideas, my wife casually walked past and peeked over my shoulder. 

"Why don't you make summer beach? You don't have anything like that this year yet."

And there it was. Suddenly, it became really obvious. It's mid summer, everybody is on vacations. Business is slow. Ideal time for something like that. Sometimes, we are so framed in the process, that a simplest of ideas can elude us.

So next time you're looking for inspiration, do your homework first. But it won't hurt to ask someone close to give some top of head idea. Four out of five times, it can feel like meh, but that fifth time can be a charm.

Fun fact. Picking out the simplest solution is sometimes referred to as Occam's razor. It's a problem solving / thinking principle and you can find mentions of it in the design principles books as well. You can read more about it on Wiki here.

Visit the full Pinboard here

Warning. Before you enter "beach" or "exotic vacation" in Pinterest search bar, be prepared to resist booking a vacation right away :)

There's really no shortage of images like this, but you might need to refine your search. Think about the emotions you want to deliver, and then try multiple searches. I searched mostly for night themed exotic images, beach light setups and lounge areas. What's really great on Pinterest, just one image can take you on a whole another search route, so try to embrace the chaos and let it inspire you.

I've stumbled upon a tiki style bar and immediately included it as one of the elements. It kind of drove the rest of the process.

It's always a bit daunting to stare at empty piece of paper, but armed with eraser and lot of reference material, you can just start blocking out some ideas and refine it later.

First thing I did was to sketch out was terrain and water. I liked the corner composition on some of the reference images so I put down some planks and included a rounded bar. Again, all of these details come from reference images, so make sure you inspect them closely to fill your mind with enough material.

I liked the layout and overall balance, so the rest was just about refining and adding details, like tiki sculptures, bamboo materials and lanterns.

You can watch the process video on Youtube