Jessica McCain makes her home in Tucson, Arizona, where the bright sunny days are why she chooses to stay. “When I come back from the coast where the air is mostly misty, the sun instantly lifts my spirits. It’s happy, it makes my garden sing, it makes everything beautiful.”

      When she was a child all her spare time was spent drawing and painting. She knew at an early age what she wanted to do with her life -- be an artist. “I just naturally was inclined to constantly be making things, and painting things. I never thought of doing anything else,” she says. “Now that I have taken the time to learn the skills to paint anad sculpt, this is where the real fun can begin.” Creativity is abundant in her family going back several generations. Her father, Buck McCain, also a painter and sculptor, was her first and greatest influence. Working on his large-scale sculptures first and then going on to do some of her own monumental bronzes was a natural path to take.

      She paints en plein air (on location) often, taking her inspiration straight from the landscape and people that surround her. The people of the Southwest and her garden tend to be favorite subject matters, but she is varied in what she paints. She paints in oils, pastels and gauache. “When I look at something, I usually instantly know what medium to use. I paint things the way I think they are screaming to be painted. I don't pick things to paint. They usually pick me—a mood, a child, or sometimes just a sunny day. Sometimes softly with pastel, sometimes wild, loose, and spontaneous with oils, or sometimes long drawn out sessions in the studio.” When it gets too hot in the summers, she can usually be found chasing cooler weather often at the ocean.

      “My goal as an artist is to make people happy when they look at my paintings, because the subject matter that I choose and the process involved make me happy. I want that to come across. I also will never stop trying new ways to paint, and my broad range of techniques will always be a part of who I am. I am a very varied artist involved in a multitude of mediums, styles, and subject matter. My paintings can be complex, and so is my box full of techniques. If I can transcend my medium and communicate with the viewer in a way that can be done clearly and without words, and they see what I saw when it demanded to be painted, then I have been successful.”