Jim McVicker

I made my first on-location, plein air painting in 1973. My influences then were the French Impressionists, mostly Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley. At the time I was working full-time and attending art classes at Chaffey Community College in Southern California. I was born and raised in Ontario, California, about 35 miles east of Los Angeles.

By the summer of 1975, I decided to become a full-time painter. I quit my job, left school, and moved to Santa Cruz in Northern California. I always loved the northern part of the state and wanted to get away from everything I knew up to that point and start a fresh life as a painter. I think I had about $5,000 in my bank account — in my mind, enough money to make a start at really exploring and trying to learn how to paint. My work at the time was very rough, but I had no doubt that I would grow and survive.

After a couple of years I moved further north to Humboldt County and have remained here, with a couple of adventures elsewhere, since 1977. Humboldt is where my education as a painter really started. There were several painters in the area whom I met through a life drawing group. Three of them, Curtis Otto, James Moore, and George Van Hook, became close friends, as well as the three painters I learned so much from over the next few years. We painted daily together, and George and I shared a studio for a couple of years. Working so closely with artists beyond one's own level was such a great way to learn to see.

In 1984 I met my wife, Terry. She was working as a graphic designer at the time we met, but by the time we were married in 1988, she began painting as a fine artist full-time. Terry has been another major influence in my development as an artist. To have a partner and companion on a daily basis who sees in ways I don't, and paints her view of life, opened my work and continues to do so. We also both believe in painting from life, outdoors and in the studio. We both paint a lot of still life and figure painting when not working outdoors.

I paint small and large on location. I've painted as large as 54x84 outdoors, but normally work 9x12 to 30x40. I may work one to fifteen or twenty sittings outdoors. I have no set rules, but work until I feel I've completed the painting. Sometimes years later I will rework a painting in the studio when I feel it is not quite working. It is funny how time can often change how we perceive our work.

I always look at as much art as I can, historical and contemporary. I learn from all of it. I will always keep painting and trying to grow as a painter. I think that will never end.