Jeff Horn Painting at Little Corona Del Mar

I had this amazing day of art last week.  I watched many of my favorite plein air painters paint at the Laguna Beach Plein Air Invitational, I met many plein air painters who came out to paint because of the event, I painted for the first time on my new easel above Crystal Cove, and then I found Jeff Horn painting down at Little Corona as I was taking reference photos of the sunlight on the amazing rocks by the ocean.

I came across Jeff Horn painting the same scene I had painted a couple of weeks earlier.  I watched as he "struggled" with his painting.  He was having this on going dialogue with himself as he was tweaking his painting.  When I came up it looked like he was almost finished.  He continued to pull things forward and push things back as he tried to get the amospheric perspective so it read right.  It was difficult because the rocks were deep in shadow in the distance and the light as the sun was setting was very warm and bright.  He used everything available to him to get the marks and tones he wanted-I was probably bugging him while I talked to him but he was very nice and I thought it was awesome of him to share some of the thoughts about his process with his painting as he worked on it.

It was funny to hear how unhappy he was with the painting as he was painting it.  I don't know if he was self conscious about it or being modest but I though it was beautiful.  I never paint this small so it was informative to see him pull out the key details and his handling of the light.