artistinportugal – Jonathan Keeton Artist Blog

I have a childhood friend who used to live on a spring fed river on the west coast of Florida until the most recent hurricane made that impossible. In winter, the river is warmer than the air, and the surface is covered with mist. This was on a tributary called Baird Creek just after sunrise. I have always wanted make a painting of it. Here is how I approached it:

Sometimes I use a single color as the ‘*primatura*‘ or first coat, but because the light changed so much, I made a variated background that was kinda sorta close to what was in the scene.

Then I made a rough but fairly detailed drawing using alcohol markers. This is usually when I realize what I have gotten myself into.

Here I’m just beginning to paint over the drawing, filling in the dark areas and beginning to indicate where the ripples in the water are.

A first pass at filling in the trees and the foliage. This felt very crude – although it was a necessary step, of course – but it became clear that the area where the light hit the water and the way it behaved at the edges of the pool, had to be clear.

A little more work on the water and mist, and the trees in shadow. There were multiple attempts to improve this, with occasional diversions to other paintings to clear my eyes.

Here’s the final painting. As it got closer, each stroke would make a big difference, and also require a lot of clarity to lay down. I’ve started to appreciate how the earlier work makes the final touches possible.

My wife Melinda Tidwell and I went to an opening with some of my work in Tulsa and stopped for dinner in Clayton, NM. The next table was some ranch hands on their night off, and it seemed such an arresting image to me that I decided to make a painting of it.