From the Gazebo

Painting from the gazebo can be a great experience if no one has booked a wedding. There is a great breeze that runs through it. 

I really like having a bench to set my stuff down on. Beyond the ease of grabbing whatever I need, it keeps my gear out of the way from people who are not paying attention.  It is irritating to have someone step on your pastels and turn them to dust.

Typical marine layer.  I knew it would burn off but painted it true to the lighting conditions that I started with.

One of the dangers of painting in the gazebo is getting kicked out because a wedding is booked.  I remember that happening to us when we were painting with Bryan Mark Taylor at a LPAPA signature member paint out.  We were about three quarters the way through it when someone came up, said they had the place booked, and poof we all moved.

Here I have described what the basic composition is going to be built from.  There is not a lot of contrast and things have a moody feel to them.

I have started defining the shape and scale of rockpile to firm up the composition.  The rest of the painting follows these decisions and everything plays out according to the treatment of this area.  With my commitment to the background composition I have narrowed my options for the foreground.  It boils down to execution and following the plan I have laid down for the painting.

I really never focus on one area of the painting until completion.  I bring all areas along together.  

With the overall composition decided, I move to define and refine the shapes in the foreground.  Usually I would pay closer attention to the differences in the values, but the overcast sky reduced the contrast and weakened the aerial perspective.

I spent a lot of time developing the shapes in the foreground.  I worked to have them flow with the other elements of the painting.  I did have to work to correct some of their size and location within the mass to be true to what was in front of me.

As I became comfortable with the shape of the foreground, I began to work on the values and color variation.

The sun had come out and the clouds had disappeared with it.  Now everything was different. 

I think my painting would have been more interesting if I had stayed and changed the lighting within the painting, but I was not prepared for the investment in time that would require.

If I had stayed and delivered a stunning contrast of values in the foreground with some really saturated and dynamic color, this painting could have been something special.

I could have saved the painting and come back another day to finish it.  I could have taken it home and worked on it some more.  As with 99.99% of my paintings outdoors, it is done all on location and it is not brought back out to be finished at another time.  I think my commitment to this process makes me a better painter.  Good, bad, or ugly every painting is an attempt to do my best.  Every painting is an attempt at a full expression.  I do not take a sketch approach to my efforts.  There are no excuses and no explanations.  Every painting is posted, not just the good ones.   

Here you can see the flat nature of the values within the painting.

The detail shot.  I liked some of the surface texture interaction within the painting.  If you look at the surf you can see the grain of the sanded plywood help define the shape of the waves.  When painting the shape of the tree at the bottom and the surrounding sand, I created a interchange relationship with what defined the tree. The shape of the sand and the drawing of the tree was a balance between what it was and what it wasn't created by seeing what it was by the space around the tree that was not the tree.