Plein Air Oil Sketch: Seals (Oil, 9 x 12)

I knew from last night's weather report that there would not be any thunder storms in Lee County Area, so I decided to paint people sunbathing on the beach. I thought I was well prepared. Instead of using French easel, I put  in the backpack a porchade plein air painting box which was a birthday gift from my children. I drove to the parking lot under the bridge by the Doc Ford Rum Bar & Grill and left my car there. Then I walked over the bridge carrying the backpack with tripod and paint box all the way to the Time Square. By the time I began to set up it was only a little past 8 AM. To my surprise, there was not a single soul there. I was too early for the beach.

After I set up, there came a handsome Brazilian young man named Eduardo who also came to the shaded area under the fishing pier to get ready to run. I asked jokingly, "You could not have enough of good beaches in Brazil and that's why you have come to Florida beach?" He said it is now winter in Brazil and the temperature on beach is in 50s. We had a nice chat. Eduardo is a pious Christian who married an American girl five years ago and followed the bride to this country. Unfortunately the marriage didn't work. Now Eduardo spends a half year here in this country and another half in Brazil. Since there was no other people on the beach, I offered to paint him. He said seriously that he would like me to paint him some other time instead of today because he came to the beach to jog. Therefore, we exchanged our phone numbers. He also introduced me to search online for a young female religious artist named Akiane who donated money she eared by selling her paintings to the cause of helping disadvantaged children in Africa.

People didn't show up on the beach till around 9:20 AM. I noticed three old seals, two female and one male coming near the shadow of the fishing pier. They sort of dipped in water and then rubbed sun screen on themselves and began lying there sun bathing. And I started to paint them right away. The sketch should have take just an hour but there was an accident in the process. I left a better tripod behind in New York and didn't bring it back to Florida. The tripod I had here had thinner legs. I should have foreseen the problem. It could have been easily solved if I had thought of it before I left home. Unfortunately, I didn't and the space in porchade tool box clamps was too big for the tripod legs to hold it firmly. When they could not hold the weight of things in it, the box fell to the ground. Down went with it my turpentine bottle. When I picked it up, there was only very little left. Everything else was mixed with sand. Finally I made do with what was left and got it done. Next time I will used a bigger size panel to paint figures. Obviously 9 x 12 is a little too small.