Painting at a Distance with John MacDonald

My intention was to capture the gesture and energy of my friend John MacDonald when we where painting together (at a distance), along the Deerfield River in MA. This was a self critical and humorous moment for John as we talked about the difficulty in capturing intention, composition and value in 2 hours, (I lamented how this was particularly challenging in watercolor). This conversation and study became the theme of a much more time consuming painting of the same subject, submitted in the Figure and Portrait category.