Jim Broussard, Before the Light Changes Painting Provincetown plein-air in winter

Painting Provincetown plein-air in winter
The Provincetown Independent
By Pat Kearns, February 21, 2024

It’s 36 degrees on a February afternoon, and Provincetown painter Jim Broussard is standing with his easel on Tremont Street next to a melting pile of snow. “I got my ski boots, ski pants, long johns, layers and layers on,” says Broussard. He’s mapping out a sketch using a brush in his gloved right hand. He uses a towel to hold five more brushes with his left hand.

Jim Broussard

Broussard uses oil paint on linen or canvas with a combination of thin and thicker layers. “I like to paint in thinner layers and put a lot of medium in it so it glows when the light hits it,” he says. “I draw a little, but I find it takes the spontaneity and joy out of my painting if it’s too studied.”

He takes about 30 minutes to get a sketch done before he starts painting. “I’m going to give myself an hour and 15 minutes to lay in the color because the light’s going to change real fast.”

Sixty-seven cents would get 12-year-old Jim Broussard and his buddy, Don, into Manhattan’s Greenwich Village from Montvale, N.J. “Things were a lot more laid back then,” he says. “We were in sixth grade looking at Rollerina skate her way around the village. Woodstock days — you could crash at people’s houses.”

His father was a professional illustrator. A graphite drawing he made of Broussard is clamped onto a shelf in his studio. Both parents understood their son was a wanderer. He was indefinitely suspended for skipping school at 15 and dropped out at 16. “Being gay in North Jersey was untenable,” he says.