Woolley’s Bay Afternoon 5×7 – Live Painting Session!

by ixnax · May 2, 2026

Revisiting a coastal scene

I’m painting a five by seven postcard-sized piece today. It’s Willy’s Bay, a scene I’ve been thinking about for a while. There’s a gallery I like near there—good people—and I want to create a card they can use to promote their business. That’s the kind of thing I’m into.

The Setup

I’m working at five by seven, which scales nicely to postcard dimensions. I’ve transferred a faint grid—nothing heavy. You don’t want to come in too strong with the grid; it’s just scaffolding to get you started.

The first move is the horizon line. I’m looking at the reference, thinking about where it sits and what that means for the composition. The horizon’s higher here, which tells you more land, less sky. That’s intentional.

One thing I notice: where two rocky points come together, instead of letting them crash into each other at a sharp angle, I’m going to stair-step the line. If you’ve got diagonal lines—subtle or otherwise—see if you can manage a stair-step instead of a perfect angle. It prevents awkwardness.

I’m using my stubby, well-worn signet brush. It’s been here for years. I recently switched to a filbert for some work, and they both have their uses.

The Underpainting

The underpainting establishes value structure and basic relationships. I’m not rendering—just getting the shapes down. This is where I work out if the composition actually functions.

I don’t want these two points meeting too strongly. I’m modifying slightly, bringing them together with intention. It’s a small move, but it matters.

Color Mixing

This is where the work actually happens.

The Sky

I start with Prussian blue and my Mike’s Gray (ivory black plus titanium white). Prussian blue has greenish tendencies. That’s fine. I temper it with raw umber to knock back the intensity. You can see on the palette how strong Prussian blue is—you don’t need much.

For the lighter sky tones, I move into yellow ochre mixed with blue and white. Yellow ochre is one of those pigments that brings warmth without screaming. It creates that pale, hazy quality at the horizon.

I’m also mixing a purplish tone for shadow in the clouds. This comes from reds and blues working together, not from a purple tube. I bring it back with complementary colors—a touch of yellow tempers the purple. You want cloud shadows that feel atmospheric, not flat.

The Water

For the water, I take some sky color and teal it up, but not as intense. I temper with raw umber to keep the chroma controlled. The water is lighter than the rocks, darker than the sky, and it needs to feel related to what’s above it while having its own character.

The Greens

I use Mike’s Green—ivory black plus cadmium yellow (or any CAD yellow hue). Simple mixture, effective. I add raw sienna to warm it and knock back the intensity. I don’t want overly cool phthalo greens. I want greens that belong to a tonalist landscape.

The Sand

For sand, I’m mixing a warm gray base using burnt sienna, raw umber, and white. Raw umber is your friend here—it’s got less chroma and more chalkiness than raw sienna, which is what you want. I build a couple of variations: darker sand and lighter sand. Mars yellow brings warmth without too much intensity.

The whole premixing session is about spread. You’re creating a range of values and temperatures so that when you paint, you’re not laying down one note over and over. You’ve got options. You’ve got harmony built into the palette before you touch the canvas.

The Painting

After lunch, I come back to the drawing. It looks good. Time to paint.

I’m using a DOS bristle filbert. I come in with the purple-blue sky color for the upper register. But I’m not painting row by row like a machine. I’m thinking about light, shadow, form. Even with a simple sky, I’m modulating constantly. Touching in some yellow here, pulling back with gray there, breaking up any sense of regularity.

Don’t have a single purple cloud floating in a gray sky. You want the purple and gray conversing. Transitions happening. Color moving across the canvas.

I’m watching the reference, but I’m not enslaved to it. The reference is small on my monitor, which helps. I’m getting the feeling of the light, the sense of movement. If I want to add more yellow in one spot or pull back the intensity, I do it. The reference guides; it doesn’t dictate.

Water and Foreground

With the sky in, I move to the water. Cooler grays and teals, but careful not to let it get too blue. A touch of the sky color ties it back, but the water is its own thing. I’m watching where the light hits, where reflections land, where shadow plays.

The green areas come next. I’m not painting every rock individually. That’s rendering mode, and that’s not where I work. I’m thinking about shapes, relationships, how the greens sit against the blue water and warm sand. I come in with the green mixture and immediately start modulating. A touch of purple from the sky creeping into the green? Yes. Some of that warm gray? Absolutely. This is where the painting starts to feel alive.

The sand is last. I’m using those warm grayish tones. I’m not going for bright orange-yellow sand—that would scream. I build warmth through layering and modulation. Darker sand suggests shadow and depth; lighter sand suggests light and form.

Breaking the Row

Throughout this, I’m conscious of breaking out of row mode. Row mode is when you paint one horizontal band completely, then move to the next. It’s mechanical. Instead, I’m weaving across the canvas—touching the sky, then the water, then the land, building relationships as I go.

It’s not always perfect. Sometimes I catch myself falling into rows. But the intention is to think of the painting as one unified thing from the start, not separate sections to be completed one by one.

Small Things

A few practical notes: Always scrape the brush first before cleaning. It saves forever. Wiping without scraping first is pointless.

That white streak in the sky—it’s bright in the reference, but would it be too distracting in the painting? Yes. So I compress it, make it less dominant. The painting is the boss, not the reference.

Watch your highlight intensity. You want them to pop, but they shouldn’t feel artificial. A little restraint goes a long way.

What Actually Happens

By the end, the painting has found its voice. The sky feels luminous. The water reads as water. The land sits in the background with presence but not aggression. The whole thing has cohesion.

This is what a complete session looks like: reference to finish, decisions made and remade, colors mixed and sometimes remixed, constant modulation, willingness to deviate when the painting needs it.

The Point

You’re going to mix more colors than you think you’ll use. That’s exploration. Premixing is about building options.

Always be modulating. Color, value, temperature, intensity. ABM.

Don’t paint in rows. Weave across the canvas, building relationships.

The reference is a guide, not a master. Use it. Don’t be enslaved to it.

Small shifts matter. Stair-stepping angles instead of meeting them head-on. Compressing highlights that are too dominant. These aren’t tricks—they’re the difference between a painting that works and one that’s just accurate.

This postcard will go to the gallery. But more importantly, it’s another painting, another session of working through problems, another chance to push the practice forward.

Stay out of trouble. And fight the power.

M Francis McCarthy, Your Painter in Residence