Surfside: Step 12
Saturday, October 2nd, 2004The completed work is shown below.

Skip to content • Skip to gallery information
The completed work is shown below.

The painting was, for all intents and purposes, complete at this point. However, upon inspection of the figure, I decided that a few minor adjustments would improve the piece. And while some contemporary artists insist that painting in Premiere Coup (one coat) is the sign of a true master, I am reminded of the words of two great masters.
Rubens said:
“…in regard to the lights: in them the colors may be loaded as much as may be thought requisite. They have substance: it is necessary, however, to keep them pure. This is effected by laying each tint in its place, and the various tints next to each other, so that, by a slight blending with the brush, they may be softened by passing one into the other without stirring them much. Afterwards you may return to this preparation, and give to it those decided touches which are always the distinctive marks of great masters.”
It is reported by his student Palma Giovene that Titian never painted a figure alla prima and that the master used to say:
“He who improvises can never make a perfect line of poetry.”
With this in mind, I am not afraid to make minor adjustments to the work at the end, adding depth to shadows, clarity to highlights, and smoother transition to the middle tones where needed. In this instance, only a very few minor changes were made…and I’m not telling where.
The close up of the figure shown below gives a better view of the colors, values and edges.

As I concluded my evening of painting one night, I was trying to decide exactly how I would paint the light on the ocean. To give me a better sense of the areas of color and value I decided to throw on a simple wash of thin paint down to the bottom of the painting. Knowing that this would be dry when I returned, I knew that I could paint over it as I pleased.

After studying several photos I had of ocean waves at various stages of sunset and sunrise, I painted the darkest parts of the water lighter on the right side of the painting nearest the sun. I reduced the value contrast of the foam in the middle and background by adding subdued purples and blues so that it would not distract from the figure, and I played up the warmth of the foreground shallow water and wet sand.
As I painted the water, I realized that I had the waves rising too high on the land at the left so that my horizon lines on either side of the figure did not align properly. At the same time I had been thinking that the rocky shoreline needed more emphasis. The solution to both problems was to paint more rocks below the land mass, doubling the height of the rocky cliff.

Once the elements that touch the sky are complete and surrounded by color, I can begin the sky itself. I did not have time to complete all this in one sitting, but worked for short periods over several days. Instead of worrying about keeping my colors wet on the canvas to work my edges, I simply worked the edges into the sky color in the immediate area.
At this point, although all the previous paint was dry, I was able to work the sky into the existing areas of flat sky color surrounding the other elements. Since I had already worked the edges of those elements wet into wet, I did not need to worry now about developing hard edges on those elements when painting wet into dry. I simply needed to make sure that my fresh paint blended into the existing flat sky colors rather than butting up directly against the edges of the figure or other elements.
The sky was painted from the warmest area above the sailboat outward to the cooler areas. There is a slight purplish haze on the horizon of the ocean at the bottom, while above the colors move into muted reds, warm violets, and then to cool blues. I used a relatively small brush - a #6 hogshair filbert - to paint the sky, blending back and forth between the colors and letting the visible brushwork create a sense of vibration in the sky.

I continue to paint the elements that touch the sky, surrounding them with an approximation of the color that the final sky will be while keeping in mind the color of the prevailing light.
The land is simplified from my reference and softened to keep it from competing with the foreground figure. I lighten the entire area to reduce value contrast that would draw undue attention, while accentuating the feel of the warm lights and cool shadows. Nonetheless, I keep the colors greyed, limiting their chromatic intensity to compensate for the effects of atmospheric perspective.


"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.
"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.
"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.
"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.
"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.
"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."