Ida and the pizza joint

Paint Wilmington (Wilmington North Carolina) was an interesting event. It was a small invitational with only seven artists; Gavin Brooks, Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie, Steve Songer, John O'Poon Poon (he's half Irish), Perry Austin, Richard Oversmith and myself. The small invites are good because it raises the odds of sales for the individual artists. Got there Sunday at noon and had one day of sun before the rain and the wind started from Hurricane Ida. It pretty much rained from monday morning until the moment I hit 95 on the way back. Rain has a way of making the plein air painter get a little more creative with the subject matter. I did two paintings from under the canopy of a bridge and I looked for interiors where I could stay dry. The best piece of the week for me was this pizza parlor, unfortunately, the only angle was outside and, though I was under an awning, it was driving rain and I got pretty darn wet. I liked this scene for the juxtaposition of the warms and cools, the stark value contrasts, and the narrative nature of the scene. This piece was a 20x20 and with the volumes of information in it, took a while to complete. Maybe 4 hours. Most of it that spent on getting the shapes right. The foundation of of the composition went in quickly with key lines indicating where the counters and pizzas went and while I waited for people to show up, I work around the figures.

One of the great things that come from an event like this is gleaning information from the individual artists, this made easier by the fact that we all stayed in the same house and with the exception of this one painting ended up together wherever we went. On one of the rainiest days, 3 of us went to the gallery to rework the existing paintings we had there and I reworked my stuff and watched the others do the same. Learned a lot about glazing and eye flow, stuff I knew but forgot. Nice to be reminded. I enhanced two large paintings by  knocking back some areas and strengthening others with the help of the critical eyes of my fellow painters. I'm adding some links to these artists so you can look at their work too.