The Jacksonville Adventure

The Jacksonville Adventure

Six Mile Landing9×12″Oil on Panel(c) Kelly Medford, 2011What an amazing time, truly an adventure! Painting this past week to raise money for the North Florida Landtrust was awesome. I never knew that there were so many places to paint here, and so varied too. This painting, a place where locals go to put their boats in, was a real find. You can tell from the thunderhead clouds that a huge storm was approaching, and in fact it got there before I finished the painting.I waited it out in the car and got the chance to finish up before the afternoon was out. That’s the good thing about Florida, the rain usually doesn’t last too long.Empty Morning on Atlantic Beach14×20″Oil on Linen(c) Kelly Medford, 2011As you’ll see I loved painting on Atlantic Beach. I joined a group of painters getting up every morning for sunrise to paint there. That’s the beauty of being at the Atlantic Ocean, you get to watch the sun coming up over the horizon each morning, incredible! This was an early morning (after sunrise) painting, one that I’ve always wanted to paint. Although it’s a simple painting, it really took me awhile to get the design of it right and working. I also had to keep moving around to keep the wind from using my canvas as a sail. Sunrise at Atlantic Beach8×12″Oil on Linen mounted on panel(c) Kelly Medford, 2011Here is one of those sunrises. Of course a painting will never do justice (or maybe not until I’ve spent a lifetime doing them), but I just loved the almost reckless abandon with which I had to paint this. The sky and the light are changing minute to minute, and just when I got a stroke down, it didn’t match the newly changing sky. Sometimes I just can’t believe those sunrises, they’re wilder than anything I could dream up.7th Street, Atlantic Beach14×11″Oil on Linen(c) Kelly Medford, 2011Man, this was probably one of the most fun ones to paint. I was in town (along with about 40 other painters!) and in this town everyone is out walking or biking- going to the beach or walking their dogs. Everyone stopped, wanting to know what I was doing and what was going on with all of these painters around. I like the interactions I get to have painting on the street. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to a person instead of a passing bird! People like to watch and they seem particularly interested in the colors I have on my palette (only 6 or so really) and how someone makes a painting just swirling those color piles around. Sometimes it seems like magic to me too. Lots of people who stopped while I was painting here actually came to our Patron’s Party event after the final day of painting, and I was happy to see them. I hope that this will be the first in many more paintouts for me. The opportunity to paint all day everyday and then get to spend the evening with other artists is a real treat and total joy. I loved every minute of it and can’t wait do it all over again.