To avoid living at the family home in Monterey, he briefly established in 1912 a separate residence in Carmel that he used to paint uninterrupted by his wife's demands.

McComas did much to humiliate her, and on two occasions so distressed her that she had to go into the hands of a physician for six weeks, the nervous strain was so great.On October 30, 1917, he married Gene Frances Baker.

[4] After visits to Hawaii and the Monterey, California Peninsula he exhibited 39 watercolors in February 1899 at the W. K. Vickery, Atkins & Torrey Gallery in San Francisco.

He briefly settled in Alameda before embarking that fall on a trip across the United States, including an exhibition in Chicago, and eventually to France, where he studied at the Académie Julian.

[6][7] He returned in December 1901 to the Monterey Peninsula, where he established a studio, but spent much of his time in the San Francisco Bay Area exhibiting and fraternizing with the local artists.

While living in Monterey, he visited geologically unique Point Lobos nearby, which he famously described as the "greatest meeting of land and water in the world.

In 1915 he served on the hanging committee and jury of awards at San Francisco's Panama–Pacific International Exposition, where he displayed 10 watercolors in the Arthur Mathews gallery.

On October 30, 1917, he married the young artist Gene (Eugenia) Francis Baker; the couple initially lived in Monterey before building their dream home in the neighboring and rather exclusive enclave of Pebble Beach.

In the early-to-mid 1930s he reemerged as a serious artist with several exhibitions of new works, some of which were inspired by recent trips to Mexico and his meetings with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.