Painting With Rick

I just finished my January "intercession" going to Painting Bootcamp with Rick Worth. He is an iconic Key West character, who has a unique philosophy of painting. I am so happy I got to know him. Although his paintings are all over the island and his Painting Bootcamp classes are filled, he is so unpretentious and kind and sweet and goofy too. I do love goofy. He moved to Key West 30 years ago to become a painter, and he has become more than that.

For those of you that missed my initial post about the class at The Studios of Key West, I'll fill you in a bit. Everything is provided for you - canvas, paint and brushes. He uses, and we used, high gloss house paint - red, yellow, blue, black and white. His painting vocabulary includes words like juicy and the ugly layer.

The photo above is on the side of a bar, not far from our place. I pass it often. It's called Wilhelmina Crossing the 7 Mile Bridg, a take off of Washington Crossing The Delaware. The original painting dates from 2012. He just refurbished it, because all of his paintings include a life time guarantee! In his update he included his dog, who he recently lost.

A friend of mine bought a house that had one of his outdoor murals along the fence. I wish you could see the scale of it. I'm guessing it's 8 feet tall.

They subsequently bought the house next door and decided it needed its own mural that included their sail boat. They really enjoyed watching him paint. What really impresses me about his paintings nd the way he taught us was the way that he adds lighter paint to form shadows. It makes all the differnce.

The most amazing painting of his that I've seen is the one he did for the theater at The Studios of Key West. It encompasses the highlights of this wonderful place, including Hemingway.

He even tips his hat to another local self-taught artist, Mario Sanchez, who died in 2005, at the age of 97. I saw an exhibit of his paintings a few years ago and fell in love with them.

So now we come to the paintings I did. Sometimes people can be great artists and not very good teachers. I have to say, this is NOT the case. Rick is a wonderful and encouraging teacher and my paintings are a testament to that. His weekly class was a highlight of my week. For 2 1/2 hours, I immersed myself in learning about his 3 levels of painting. And I mean I immersed myself, always coming home with paint all over my arm. There was no prescribed syllabus. We never knew what was going to be the topic of our painting for the week.

Week #1

Week #2

Week #3

Week #4

Week #5

It was nice to step out of my comfort zone. The class was a bit stressful at times, but definitely worth the time and the risk. Do you ever step out of your coma fort zone?

 

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