If somebody told me last week that I would be painting a sailboat on Lake Wallenpaupack this weekend, well sir, I would have probably said, “based on my proximity to the Poconos, I could easily see this happening.”

@jimimcclure and @lizasuh invited my lady, @nyacupuncture and me to Pennsylvania’s best kept secret – Lake Wallenpaupack, from “The Office” fame. An overcast, beer-fueled shoreline painting ensued, process after the jump.

As an artist, you have the liberty to Photoshop reality. In this case, I wanted to paint one boat – background be damned!

Easel, Yuengling, Canvas, White Hat, iPod Shuffle, Lakefront View – time to get down to bidness.

That Bob Ross made painting a spectator sport is incredible – as you can see, painting action shots can rival many other exciting activities, such as pumpkin growing and professional food shopping.

Thank you for the candid snaps Liza, I didn’t even know you were taking these bad boys.

The entire drawing was a continuous contour line drawing, which I felt was appropriate for a sailboat. For some reason, anything with a large swatch of tonal variation has been resembling army camouflage in my work of late.

Painting in this type of overcast day is always reflected in your palette; each color lacks that certain Vitamin D infusion a bright sunny day delivers.

This painting was completed in about three hours; each color was mixed from the previous color to help recreate the evident tonal similarities.

Even on a small canvas, an obvious oversight can easily occur. Here, I simply forgot to paint in the water over the sailboat – this ended up being, as my high school art teacher would say, a “happy accident” – simply the best thing that can happen to an artist.

When the entire image is filled in, things start to make a certain level of sense you were hoping to achieve from the onset, but are unsure of until it actually happens.

In a short time-frame painting, it is mandatory to rely on cheap parlor tricks. Darker colors on the horizon create distance, brightest brights in the foreground create space; wash, rinse, repeat.

Nearly there, the mast hath been painted, and the cream-colored boat is awaiting a final white glaze.

When you get to this point in the painting, it is time to drain the beer and shuffle your beats until you reach an uptempo closer.

The final, in some better light as the day came to an end. Looking at this canvas, I wonder if I managed to paint this rural scene in my own visual language – or if it is just another painted sailboat on a lake?

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