Some new Small Paintings

 This week I focused on some small paintings, an abandoned truck and three classic cars.  Some are painted on gallery wrapped canvas which combined with the small size means they are self standing so they can sit on a shelf or table but also can be hung on a wall if so desire.  Click on the images for more details and to purchase.

"1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser"
Acrylic, 10" x 8" on 1/8" panel

"1939 GMC Truck"
Acrylic, 8" x 8" on gallery wrap canvas

"Blue 1953 Desoto"
Acrylic, 6" x 6" on gallery wrap canvas

"Blue 1950 Chevy"
Acrylic, 6" x 6" on gallery wrap canvas

More drips and splatters

 I've continued with developing the drip and splatter process, this time completing a painting of two classic cars stacked on top of each other in a junkyard, the bottom a red Ford station wagon with a blue Mercury sedan sitting on it's roof. 

This painting is on a gallery wrap canvas, meaning the stretcher bars are 1.5" thick so it can hang without a frame.  I started by applying modeling paste to the whole thing (including the sides) to create texture and painted the sides black.  Then I toned the surface with yellow oxide and then dripped ultramarine blue, yellow oxide, and burnt sienna over most of the surface.  Then it was to the easel where I first started to indicate the composition with some loose and open brush strokes. Then I refined the composition using a black paint pen and then the real painting began with a couple layers of smaller, more refined brush strokes.  Then it was time for some splattering and a few more drips. To finish it off I used a variety of paint pens to add loose and scribbly line work.

"Stacked and Abandoned"
Acrylic on gallery wrap canvas, 20" X 20"

Three New Car Paintings Runny and Splattered

 I completed three new automotive paintings this week in a somewhat expressionist style using drips and spattering as well as scribbly line work using paint pens.

"Red Jaguar XK120"
Acrylic, 9" X 12" on 1/8" panel

"Mint Green 1954 Mercury Monterey"
Acrylic, 16" X 12" on deep cradled panel

"1934 Chevy Pickup Rat Rod"
Acrylic 12" X 16" on 1/8" panel

Car Show Season, Finally!

 It's been a long winter, still snowing up to less than a week ago, the week when car show season usually starts.  Of course snow fall cancels car shows so there were no shows last week.  As bad as the snow was early last week it abruptly stopped and the temperatures climbed 30 degrees in just a couple days.  Monday, the day after Easter the sun was out and we had the highest temperatures of the year so far, it hit as high as 77 degrees.  This has been quite a shock to the system, wearing a heavy coat to shorts and short sleeves in just a few days, I won't complain though because I have been anxiously waiting for spring and to finally go to car shows.  

The first car show I went to was just an evening cruise night on Monday but it's obvious everybody else was anxious for the car show season to finally start as well since the parking lot couldn't hold all of the cars that showed up which gave me plenty of sketching opportunities. 

The first sketch was of a 1930 Model A Ford hot rod pickup, old school style without fenders with big and little skinny bias ply tires, my favorite.  I used a Tombow Fude pen and watercolor.

I was able to do the next sketch without moving, a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner classic muscle car.

The last one was a highly customized 1937 Ford Phaeton. Unfortunately I didn't capture the sweeping shape of this unique car very well.

It was a little windy and I forgot to bring a couple binder clips with me which meant I had to keep one hand holding the sketchbook at all times which limited the techniques I could use a bit. I'm not sure it is worth bringing all that watercolor gear with me anyway, just complicates things and really this is more about drawing practice, I'm not making masterpieces here.  I'm leaning towards just taking pens and grayscale markers to future shows.

Sketchbook Wednesday #1

 This is the first of a weekly series sharing sketches from my sketchbooks.  Yes, this one is a day late as I intend these posts to go up every Wednesday. 

1947 Mercury Convertible Sketch

The first sketch was done using a Tombow Fude pen for the line work and gray markers for the tones on bristol smooth paper and features a 1947 Mercury convertible from a reference photo I took at a local car show.

"Abandoned 1950 Chevy Flatbed Truck Sketch"

The second sketch is done using brown (sepia) pens and markers.  I intended to do most of the line work using a small brush pen but it turned out to be dried out. The linework is done with a Faber Castel brown pen, the tones were added using Tombow markers all on bristol smooth paper. The subject is an old Chevy medium duty truck with wheels stacked on it's bed from a photo I took at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

"Vintage Model A Ford Hot Rod Coupe Sketch"

And the last sketch features a Model A Ford five window coupe hot rod equipped with a V8 engine with dual carbs. This sketch was done using a Tombow Fude pen for the line work and Tombow gray markers for the tones on bristol smooth paper.  I used a vintage photograph as my reference.

So, keep an eye on this blog in the future for more sketches posted every Wednesday.

It's a Car, it's a Boat, no it's an Amphicar!

 Amphibious vehicles aren't just for the military, at least they weren't in the 1960's when the Amphicar was produced.  Manufactured in West Germany less than 4000 Amphicars were made and about 3000 of those were exported to the United States,.  In spite of such a low production run and the fact that only about 300 are known to still exist in the United States I've encountered a couple at local car shows.  I decided to make a line and wash sketch of one.

"Red Amphicar Classic Car"
8" X 10" Pen and Watercolor
Click on image to purchase

As you can see the Amphicar is a very small car with an almost comical appearance due to that boat-like front end.

Colorful and Sketchy

 I've been creating a new series of artwork lately, I call it "Colorful Sketchy".  It's an all automotive series, consisting of classic cars, vintage trucks, hot rods, custom cars, abandoned vehicles and more.  They are all "line and wash" sketches, which means I use pens and watercolor.  My goal is not realism, rather I purposely try to make the drawing and washes of color loose and give the subject extra character. I have been doing as many as five of these a week for a couple months now.  Below are a few of my favorites so far, but you can see all that are currently available in my Etsy store here" Colorful Sketchy 

"Blue Hot Rod Ford Pickup" pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

"Yellow Hot Rod Ford Pickup Sketch" pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

"Green 1946 International Farm Truck" pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

"Orange Ford T-bucket Hot Rod" pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

"Purple Custom 1956 Mercury Hardtop" pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

Playing With Classic Cars

Often times I start a painting, get frustrated with it, take it off the easel and set it aside, put it back on the easel a few days later, get frustrated, set it aside again and so on.  Most often these frustrating paintings eventually get covered and the surface used for a totally different painting.  Occasionally I'm actually able to make the painting turn the corner and turn into something worthwhile, that is what happened with this one.

"Yellow 1953 Buick", Acrylic 12" X 16"

This is a 1953 Buick classic car.  I started this painting a couple months ago and it did a couple stints on the easel, the third time was the charm. The car in my reference photo that I took at a local car show was actually kind of a pale green, I decided it needed to be something more dynamic and painted it yellow. I painted this one mostly with brushes with highlights applied with a palette knife and thick paint.  I kept it loose and impressionistic.  I also added some splatters at the bottom.  I kept the background abstract in blue and violet.

Sketching Abandoned Vehicles

 This week I decided to make abandoned vehicles the theme for my daily charcoal sketches.  I love classic cars, and old trucks and tractors.  While they look great original or restored there's something appealing about finding them "in the wild" being overtaken by nature, the image is just visually appealing, but also could it be a metaphor for leaving the past behind?

I discovered this abandoned 1950 Chevy sedan on ranch property on the outskirts of Torrey, Utah.

This junked 1940's Chevy dump truck is resting in a wrecking yard in Nephi, Utah.

I found this antique Fordson tractor rusting away in a field somewhere west of Ogden, Utah.

This classic Ford Mustang convertible was actually sitting in the parking lot of a restoration shop for years obviously being used as a parts car as parts and sections of sheet metal gradually disappeared.

This circa 1950 Ford truck is sitting in the Erickson Foundation Ranch in Wallburg, Utah.

I found this vintage Farmall tractor at a small farm in Pleasant Grove, Utah

This mostly stripped 1953 Pontiac coupe was resting in a wrecking Grantsville, Utah, unfortunately political pressures pushed the owner to close the yard and most likely most of the cars on the property went to the crusher.

That's all of the daily sketches for the past week, next weeks theme will be "rural" so expect to see a bunch of barns in next Sunday's blog post.

Another Abandoned Vehicle

 Yep, I painted another abandoned vehicle, a 1948 Ford classic car this time.  Are you getting tired of my junkyard paintings?  I'll admit they don't seem to be popular but I just can't help myself.

"Abandoned 1948 Ford"
Acrylic, 11" X 14"

In case it's not obvious this one is also painted with palette knives with thick paint generating a very richly textured surface as can be seen in these close up detail images.

 

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Back to the Classic Cars

 I haven't been spending as much time as I should at the easel lately but I'm trying to do better.  I also haven't painted a classic car in a while, I decided to rectify both situations recently, as well as get back into making blog posts.

Blue 1965 Ford Thunderbird
Acrylic, 10" X 20"

Prints Available

We've all heard the line from the Beach Boys song "We'll have fun fun fun until Daddy takes the T-bird away".  I don't know what year of Thunderbird they were singing about but it couldn't have been a 1965 since the song was released in 1964, though the 1964 through 1966 Thunderbirds were almost identical in body style.  So why are Thunderbirds so fun?  Initially introduced as Ford's answer to the Corvette they were really more of a luxury sports car, then in the late 1950's and early 1960's they turned into a four seater and got rather large, still a somewhat sporty car but far from being a sports car.  Then the "Bullet Bird" was introduced.  The 1964-1966 body style was referred to as the "Buller Bird" because it's profile shape was very similar to a bullet. This generation of the Thundered bird took it somewhat back to it's roots, it was downsized while still remaining a four seater and given a much more sporty profile, but still not really a sports car, but definitely much more sporty than the second generation.  I believe this version belonged in the "personal luxury" category.

My painting focuses on the passenger front corner including part of the grill, the top of the corner of the bumper, the headlights, the wheel/tire and part of the hood.  I decided to paint this one mostly with brushes but kept it looks and added some textural touches with the palette knife.

A Dynamic Composition for a Dynamic Design

During the late 1950's and early 1960's Chrysler Corp had some of the wildest automotive designs.  We have Chrysler to thank for the tall tail fin craze of the late 1950's as the other manufacturers responded to the 1957 Plymouth Fury.  Chrysler maybe didn't invent the canted dual headlights, in fact customizers had been adding them to cars for a couple years prior but Chrysler took them to a new level, even to the point of shaping the grill to match. That's what drew me to a 1961 Chrysler 300 I saw at a car show, I finally got around to making a painting of it but changing the color from white to red.

"Red Chrysler 300"

Inspired by the canted headlights I decided to put the whole car at an angle creating a more dynamic composition to match Chrysler's dynamic design.  Of course I used palette knives for most of the painting to create a semi-abstract appearance, here are a couple close up images to illustrate this effect;

Blue Thunderbird

The Thunderbird was Ford's answer to Chevrolet's Corvette.  For the first three years of production the Thunderbird was a sporty two seater personal luxury car.  In 1958 the Thunderbird grew in all dimensions and gained a back seat but was still considered sporty, personal upscale transportation, while Chevy's Corvette remained a two seater and actually become more of a sports car every year, making 1955 through 1957 the only years the Corvette and the Thunderbird were direct competitors.

So, a little automotive history to give some back story to my latest painting. I'd just be repeating myself for the thousandth time to say I love classic cars, most all of them.  I have some favorites but no brand allegiance per say, so while I love Corvettes, I find Thunderbirds appealing as well.  When it comes to a subject for my art though, the design of the car needs to be appealing as a painting as well.  It's not just about the car, it's about the composition.  I know most people will love an image of their favorite car regardless of composition, but as an artist I have to think beyond the subject. That's why I enjoy doing close crops like this, nearly any classic car has an angle that makes a good composition if closely cropped.

Blue Thunderbird

Click on image to purchase

I chose pastel colors for the whole painting, a popular color palette of the 1950's. Painted in my usual semi-abstract style using mostly knives and thick paint, with very little brushwork.

Close Crops

There are a couple of ways to abstract something yet keep it representational.  You can alter and/or simplify the shapes but not so much they become unrecognizable.  You can obscure the object with abstract marks.  Or you can use unexpected colors, or any combination of the three. A fourth way is to focus on only a portion of the subject rather than include the whole. That's what I chose to do with these two paintings, that and alter/simplify the shapes slightly which is an automatic result of using knives to paint instead of brushes.

Orange Studebaker Champion

Acrylic, 16" X 20" X 3/4" cradled panel

(Click on image to purchase)

The 1950 Studebaker Champion has a very distinctive front end, the center of which is often referred to as a "bullet nose" so of course I composed the painting to focus on this feature.

Tri Power

Acrylic, 18" X 20" X 3/4" cradled panel

(Click on image to purchase)

Subject number two is a Model A Ford coupe modified into a fenderless hot rod equipped with a Chevy V8 engine sporting three, two barrel carburetors, hence the name "Tri Power". I showed more of the car in this one, nearly half, because I felt there was more story to tell.  Obviously that hopped up motor is the focus.