Painting with Jim McVicker

This is a view that I had not painted before.  It was not that appealing to me until I saw Jim McVicker painting there.

I saw Jim www.jimmcvickerpaints.com painting at the quick draw on Sunday and was excited to see him painting the next day.  I thought his colors were better than most at the quick draw.  I also really liked his style and brush strokes.  Even though the location was not that great, I asked if he minded if I could paint with him.  He welcomed me.

I did a super quick sketch to make sure I could fit everything I wanted on my surface.  This is easy for the two foot by three foot paintings because the ratio is the same as my sketch book.

I am trying to keep it dark as long as I can so that the highlights do not get over worked.  In addition, when I work with the darker colors as long as possible it really helps me capture the light. Instead of painting the light at different stages throughout the painting, saving it till the end results in a more accurate representation of the scene.

The slope in the middle ground was difficult to fit into my composition and I had to redraw it and move it around so that it felt accurate.

Jim stayed mostly along Hiesler Park working a number of paintings throughout the day.  He worked 3 to 4 different paintings at the same time each day until they were complete.

Here you can see my correction to the foreground.  It is always more time consuming to go back and fix what is wrong than to get it right in the beginning.

The palm trees were a lot darker than I normally paint them because the light was behind them and the day was so overcast.  I liked the way the atmospheric perspective worked in this painting. The overcast day really made the coastline bluer than it normally is.

It felt very gratifying to have so many passerby's compliment my work.  I felt accomplished because my work stood the test of comparison.

When I am painting, I am painting the whole scene.  I am not thinking about what the center of interest is.  I don't believe that something as beautiful and complex as nature should be dummied down for consumption.  I think that the many subtle relationships between the objects, colors, and values are what make the picture a success.  I do not subscribe to the school of thought that thinks that everything in the painting must be subordinated to the center of interest.  In this painting, if there were to be a center of interest, I guess it would be the palm trees.  

The final painting 24"X 36".  

The black and white version of the painting.  This is an exercise in determining if the values are true.

The large version of the painting to show the detail of the painting.