At a Distance, Painting with John MacDonald, from the Unrecognized Essential Workers Series

John MacDonald and I paint together along the Deerfield river, a convenient meeting spot located between our homes/studios in western Ma. Earlier this summer we were painting together, (socially distanced), he was painting the view up river and I did a watercolor painting of him painting. We often talk about the process, techniques, etc. and we were discussing the difficulty in nailing the composition and values in a 2 hour session and wouldn't it be great to have the luxury of time, as in a studio piece, to do that, and then bring it back on location to ad color and finishing touches. With that in mind, I took a few photos of John and with my plein air watercolor, did an underpainting of John in oil with raw umber, (John typically uses Vasari, which he had given me) and white on a 20"x16" linen panel. John was kind enough to join me twice more at the same location for me to then finish the piece in color. I took care to treat the background with a sfumato technique for both atmosphere and compositional effect, but also in honor of Johns' own painting style.