Painting the Beauty of Hawaii in Oil

This past year I set aside some extra time, gathered some extra courage and started to capture my painting process in short videos. I have spent the last twenty years painting the beauty of Hawaii in oil on canvas. The world has changed since I sold my first island painting and this new era IS about video for teaching and sharing and entertaining—all of which I think you will enjoy.

The first few painting videos were of small oils on canvas, think 9×12 inches. I learned quite a lot from each videos session. I started with vertical video because the paintings I was working on at the time were small and vertical…and vertical video works well for Instagram.

I’ll admit that I felt frustrated that I needed to spend more time setting up for better quality videos. I also felt self-conscious at first.

It’s difficult to paint live for people. On one hand, I’m worried about quick transformation for entertainment and attention span purposes…and then on the other hand I’m quite concerned if painting on video will sacrifice my quality of art because I’m concerned with the entertainment aspect. There’s quality behind my work—it’s not a quick, slapped together type of process. Not saying that’s a bad thing with art that does come together quickly, just that my work tends to take a little more time. It’s a slower burn…and to be frank, in the end, there is a quality difference in person.

What people want to see, I believe…so tell me if I’m wrong…is how a painting transforms from a blank canvas to a finished product…and I think many people want to see that happen rather quickly. My solution was to speed up the process and show my work in fast motion. With a small painting, I could capture a few sessions alternated by some time where I wasn’t worried about video…and thus show a painting through much of the technique, only fast.

The first videos were also not as well set-up or lit…and I’ve learned much in the past few months. And I’m more confident now. Usually I can paint now…and not think of the camera.

Surprisingly, I’ve enjoyed producing these short painting videos. They allow me to better show my collectors and fans how one of my island paintings comes to life. It’s been e a new challenge to conquer. There is still much to learn but I’m confident that one year from now, we’ll all look back and see great transformation in the actual quality of my painting videos.

And with that, I’d love to share some new videos that were produced for Facebook and Instagram…so pardon the quality. There is still a learning curve that I’m conquering. Here is part of my thought process…hope that you enjoy and can overlook the production qualities of these videos.

Drawing in Pencil to Create a Composition

This quick sketch will be entirely covered up with paint…but in this short session, you’ll see how I’m sketching loosely to work out the composition.

The Underpainting is a Beautiful Expression Fluid Like a Watercolor

Often I will create an underpainting that’s beautiful, very expressive—this is still part of the gesture work. Instead of a sketch, I’m creating a gesture with thin paint, very much like a watercolor, which I am very comfortable with. This layer gets completely covered up in oil paint. This is part of my process for capturing an emotion within a painting. My Hawaiian Island paintings are often about an idea. I try to capture a feeling, an essence versus a literal place.

Adding Detail to Palm Trees

This next segment is 2x speed. I decided to slow it down just to give youtube a longer video, see how that works out. I’m basically adding detail to the coconut palms

More of the Underpainting in the Mountains

This segment is 2x speed. This part of the process is about laying in a slightly thicker layer of color. I’m working mostly in the mountain area because this area I envision to have a lot of detail. And there were actually two ways that I could have gone with this painting: keep the mountains more greyed out and that would have pushed that part of the scene backwards, creating depth and a different sort of emotion. Or…and this is the direction that I went, I could add a good amount of detail to the mountains, the scene would be closer in, with a different ambiance.

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I decided to go with more detail in the mountains, simply because I was looking forward to painting them! And I know this beach well, the mountains are close. I could have gone either way.

Would you like to see the finished painting? I’ve titled it Summer Breeze at Tunnels Beach.