Byron Bay inspired Background

I have been doing a lot of black and white studies, and topics chosen by others on my digital painting course and I felt like painting something that I had chosen. Further down the page you can see the reference image. 

I took out the horizontal hand rail, because it wasn't adding anything to the image, it was a distraction. I also extended the visible steps because as an animation background this would be a path for animated characters and for staging it should be wider. I made some brushes for the leaves and path textures, which was good to recap. In an animation the waves would be moving and so I did a version without this, and a version more like an illustration with waves and two surfers as a focal point. I'm working towards having some projects in my portfolio which are story driven, which is what my backgrounds need to show. I know painting a pretty picture is only part of what's required as a background artist. I'm just building up my skills and confidence painting by painting. 

First sketch