Four weeks ago I showed you the finished painting.

Three weeks ago I showed you where it began — the underpainting in raw umber and Payne's gray.

Two weeks ago the warm colors arrived — the gold and orange cloud mass finding its voice against the deepening dark of the surrounding storm sky.

Last week I explained that the accumulated observation behind those color decisions came not from a single photograph but from years of watching sunset cloud formations — a composite of many observed moments assembled by the painter into a single image.

This week I want to bring the complete sequence together, describe the final decision — the water — and make two announcements about what comes next.

The Water

The last significant decision in this painting was the water surface — and it was the most technically specific.

A dark seascape at near-sunset should appear almost black. The ocean in the foreground of The Beauty Of The Settting Sun is dark — Payne's gray and ivory black with very little warm admixture. But dark water with light on it is not simply dark. It carries the reflected color of the light source above it, broken across the slight movement of the surface into individual facets each of which catches and releases the warm cloud light at a slightly different angle.

I have painted moonlight on water in several of the Moon Moods series and the principle is the same: the reflection is not a single stripe or a single value. It is a sequence of value and temperature variations — each one specific, each one observed — that together read as light on moving water. In this painting those variations are green-gold rather than silver-white, because the light source is a warm sunset cloud rather than a cool moon.

The rock form at the lower right was the final element — barely visible, dark against the dark water, but essential. Without it the viewer is suspended in open ocean with no sense of place. With it they are standing somewhere specific, on a rocky coastline, looking out at this particular sky at this particular moment.

What the sequential photographs teach:

Looking at all four photographs together — underpainting, first warm color, developed middle stage, finished canvas — the painting's logic becomes clear in a way that looking at the finished work alone never reveals.

The finished painting looks inevitable. Of course the cloud glows that way. Of course the water catches that light. Of course the rock form is there. Of course years of watching sunsets from a Kentucky farm, from the Pacific, from a Louisville studio window would eventually produce this specific image.

Nothing about it was inevitable. Every element was a decision, made in sequence, each one building on what came before. The underpainting made the color possible. The color made the water decision clear. The water made the rock form necessary. And years of accumulated observation made every one of those decisions possible without hesitation.

This is what I teach in The Landscape Method — not just the techniques but the sequence of decisions that turns a bare canvas into a painting that feels like a place. And not just the sequence of decisions in the painting session itself, but the lifetime of looking that makes those decisions available when you need them.

Announcement 1 — The Kore Gallery Live Demonstration

On Friday November 14 and Saturday November 15, from noon to 5:00 PM each day, I will be painting live at the Kore Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky.

A complete seascape and cloud formation painting — started on Friday and finished on Saturday — painted in the gallery space where anyone who wants to watch is welcome to come and do so. You will see the same process I have shared across these four weeks of sequential photographs happening in real time, in a gallery setting, on a canvas that will hang on the gallery wall when it is finished.

More details on the gallery demonstration next week.

Announcement 2 — The Landscape Method December 2026

The next session of The Landscape Method is scheduled for December 2026.

Dates will be confirmed and communicated to waiting list members first — before any public announcement. If you want to be among the first to know and to have the first opportunity to enroll, email me at [email protected] with the subject line: Waiting List. No payment required. No commitment beyond letting me know you are interested.

The window is not closing. It has always been open.

Push off down the hill.

— Gorden McMurry, The Painting Physician
gordensoilpainting.com