Tampa beach scene finale.... prudence won over boldness!

Overall, this was a good exercise on painting the larger figure (30 inch high, large surface area). I had to gobble up a big piece of "humble pie" with this one! For one thing, I need to mix more paint to exercise better control on fast drying acrylics. Using a retarder may help to push colors around, especially in the final stage of development.


On the question of style, looking at my last three paintings, I've gone from pretty loose to fairly tight in execution... again!


The one on the left, at first glance, looks like organized chaos (or organized emotions in paint to be less harsh on myself) and is, in a way, almost abstract. However, it gains tremendous strength when viewed from a distance and becomes almost photographic.

This is where I am going: a painting saddling abstraction and pure figuration and seemingly put together with a tremendous sense of urgency ... as if my very own life depended on it!

In retrospect, what really made the difference with the painting I just referred to was the security blanket of a stronger underpainting. As a result, much fewer marks were required to complete the painting giving it more freshness in my view.

Another important aspect that I must exploit in future paintings is separating colors as opposed to blending them to death! This second pass from one of my previous paintings exemplifies this:


These are my "notes to self" for today!