After a long morning of taking photos and sketching I was looking around for a quiet corner to take a break when I saw this man. He seemed to be in a happy mood, enjoying his work preparing the coconuts for planting. He paid no attention to me, although I was standing near him. He must have received a large coco palm order I guessed, looking at his boat loaded with coco palms and other plants.

I was attracted by his complete absorption in his work of peeling off the coconut shells. Watching him at work refreshed me and I forgot all about taking a break.

This painting was done in my studio. I painted his colorful shirt with a mixture of tinted ruby red and tinted cerulean blue applied on a dampened surface. For his trousers I used Payne's gray and for the bushes behind him on the left I used a mixture of yellow ochre and a little cerulean blue. The coconut shell in the lower left was painted with a little mixture of new gamboge and burnt sienna. A dry brush stroke was used to achieve the foliage effect in the lower left. I added a wooden paddle, cutting from left to right across the empty space in front of the man, to provide a more interesting relationship within the painting.

The boat was painted with diluted burnt sienna and covered with a second layer of Payne's gray. For the coco palm I used burnt sienna with a little touch of burnt umber. Leaves were painted with a mixture of new gamboge, cerulean blue and a little viridian green. A final touch with a simple stroke of Payne's gray indicates the shadow under the boat.