Donald A Jusko

Hawaii US

Medium: Oils on Linen Panel
Height: 30"
Width: 22"

Donald was an art director for an advertising agency in Florida after finishing his Navy service in Photo Intelligence there. He then moved to San Francisco to open his own agency. After a knee injury he moved to Maui, Hawaii to buy a boat in Lahaina and recuperate. Since then has been painting on location for twenty two years on Maui from his moving studio van and has sold everything he painted from his own gallery. This gallery held the record for the highest sales of original work in Hawaii for three years selling four hundred paintings. Click here to read the Maui News article, portraits and his Old Wailuku Gallery.

This painting was done in my artist friends back yard in Nahiku Maui, the heart of the rainy area of Maui. The medium for this painting was made by mixing fifty percent stand oil, twenty five percent sun thickened linseed oil and twenty five percent cold pressed linseed oil. This gave the right amount of grip and slide to the paint. Two percent beeswax was added to give the paint a buttery character that I like when I'm pushing paint around. In locating the subject two points of interest, one light and one dark, caught my fancy right away. I like leaving a little white space in a painting, this gives a high contrast area to portray power in the work. The dark area leaves behind mystery. This painting had everything and I was ready. I worked ten four hour days sitting under my umbrella, half the time it was raining the other half it was sunny. A good umbrella is an essential tool for a location painter, just like good brushes and bug repellent.

With the changing weather pattern I had to decide which lighting I wanted to depict before the first stroke was applied. I went for the cloudy day effect about noon because it brought out the blue sky reflections on the foliage. This meant my daily painting time would be from 10:30 to 1:30, I could live with that and start another afternoon painting. The opposite color of Yellow is Ultramarine Blue, the opposite of Cyan is Cadmium Red, both of these oppositions were present adding another important factor for painting this picture, I just couldn't pass it by. There was also the Purple to Yellow-green opposition happening like icing on a cake. When I paint I like to lay all my colors in broadly with a rag and a big brush, working down to the details. This keeps the work fresh and interesting, and me from getting bored. A good painting is exciting to paint.

Don provides extensive reference and tuitional material, especially on colours and materials, from his web site which can be found by clicking the Home button below.