Sketchbook Wednesday #2

 I'm actually on time this week.  I have three new sketchbook sketches to share with you.

"Vintage Dodge Truck Sketch"
Available on Etsy

This sketch christened a whole new sketchbook that's made up of tan toned paper.  I used a Tombow Fude brush pen for the black and a Posca paint pen for the whites.  The subject is a 1946 Dodge flatbed farm truck that has seen better days.  The sheets are peforated in this sketchbook so I decided to make this sketch available to purchase, click on the image.

"Abandoned Cars and Trucks in a Row Sketch"

The second sketch uses the Tombow fude brush pen for the line work and Tombow gray brush pens for the toning. The subject is a line of abandoned cars and trucks in the grass.  I took the reference photo at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

"Custom 1940 Ford Pickup Sketch'

The last sketch is a custom 1940 Ford pickup from a photo I took at a car show.  I used the fude pen again for the line work but used color Tombow brush pens for the shading this time.

Abandoned Mack Truck

 I love just about anything classic from the 1960's and earlier, cars and trucks especially.  Mack trucks from that era especially have a certain special distinct look, the B series in particular.  The Mack B series was manufactured from 1953 thru 1966 and represents a design aesthetic that straddled the line between art deco and modern.  The styling still contained elements of pre-war industrial design combined with the modern style that all vehicles were moving toward, heavy trucks lagged a few years behind cars and light trucks in that regard.  I recently made a line and wash watercolor sketch of an abandoned green B61 Mack truck.

"Abandoned Green Mack B61 Truck"
11" X 14" Pen and Watercolor"
Click on image to purchase

I found the truck I used as a reference for this sketch in the small, somewhat remote desert town of Hanksville, Utah a few years ago. To make a more interesting composition I added some barrels, wood spool and gas pump to the background.

My Dad owned a Mack truck though it was 1936, well the cab was, the frame and engine came from some other model of truck from the early 1950's.   This truck had a gas engine and no sleeper. My Dad's main truck broke down just before he was going to take my brother and I on a trip to California where we were also going to vacation for a few days at Disney Land and Knotts Berry Farm, (this was in the late 1970's).  He was committed to getting a load to California and committed to taking my brother and I on vacation so he hooked the old Mack up to the trailer and away we went...very slowly.  Even though our destination was southern California we had to make a stop up north first which necessitated climbing Donner's Pass...at about 20-25 miles per hour.  The Mack had a problem with overheating, so about every 15-20 minutes during the climb My Dad had to pull the truck over to let it cool off.  I swear it took us half the day to make it over the pass.   Remember how I mentioned the truck didn't have a sleeper?  Heavy trucks usually only have two seats. My brother was much younger and smaller than me so he got to sit on the mini fridge my Dad had sitting between the seats while making sure he kept his legs clear of the shift levers. Another fun feature of this truck was the "Fred Flintstone" floor.  That's right, the floor had holes in it, I could actually watch the pavement fly by underneath the truck. The world was quite different back then, in today's culture this probably sounds like child abuse or endangerment but these experiences are some of my most fond, these are the kinds of memories that come flooding back when I feel nostalgic.  I actually feel sorry for the youth of today that they don't get a chance to have these kinds of experiences I had in my youth, I really believe my life has been much richer for it.

Sketching a Kenworth

 When I was a kid my Dad was an independent truck driver.  It was the 1970's and trucking was a big craze, in the late 1970's in particular.  That was when my favorite movie came out, Smokey and the Bandit, I dragged my poor father to the theater seven times to see that movie, looking back I can't believe he went along with it.  I also spent many hours in the cab of his trucks during the summer, at least before I was old enough to start working.  One of the trucks he owned was a Kenworth W900 that he built himself from parts he had gathered.  That's right, my Dad was a mechanic before he was a truck driver and built his own trucks out of used parts for a fraction of the cost of buying one. I have fond memories of many of his trucks but especially of that fireball metallic red Kenworth conventional.  

Unfortunately we don't see many vintage semi-trucks at the local shows but when they do appear I get very nostalgic for those days of my youth riding cross country in a big rig and of course take many photos.  I used one of those photos as reference for this sketch of a Kenworth W900, not quite the same as my Dad's truck but very cool nonetheless.

Red 1994 Kenworth W900 Truck
8' X 10" pen and watercolor
Click on image to purchase

Dip Pen and Watercolor

 Recently I decided to try using a dip pen to do the line work on a line and wash painting.  I wanted to see if a dip pen might put some more irregularity in my line work.  I also worked a bit larger and with more detail on this one.  I also used cold press paper instead of the usual hot press paper I use, I did this for two reasons, one because I accidentally ordered cold press and two because I wanted to see how the watercolor acted on cold press as opposed to hot press.  Using cold press however was difficult with the dip pen, the extra texture caused a lot of interference with pen movement but I suppose that resulted in even more irregularity.  

The subject is an abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 fleetside pickup.  The truck is from a reference photo I took in a fairly remote rural Utah town, the landscape around it was developed from my imagination, or maybe you could call it muscle memory from all the drawing and painting I've done in the past.

I decided the line work was good enough and complete enough to scan it and offer it as a pen drawing print.

"Abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup Pen Dwg"

After the line work I applied color using Holbien watercolor paint.  I can't say I noticed much difference between using hot press or cold press paper while applying the watercolor washes but that's probably because I'm not really a watercolorist and don't know how to take advantage of cold press paper.  The original is available in my Etsy store.

"Abandoned 1963 Chevy C10 Pickup" pen and watercolor 11" X 14"

Well, I still have two full watercolor blocks of this cold press paper, I'm definitely not going to let them go to waste, however I'm not going to use a dip pen on them either. I'm already working on another line and wash painting using my usual Faber Castell fiber pens and they handle the cold press paper much better, though I do think the cold press texture is wearing them down much faster.

Abandoned Model AA Ford Truck Pen Drawing

 I'm finding I'm enjoying pen drawing more than ever and have completed another one this week.

Most people are not aware of Ford's truck history.  While Ford introduced the Model T in 1908 they didn't introduce a truck version until 1917, called the Model TT.  The Model TT has essentially the same chassis and drivetrain as the Model T except for a worm drive rear axle that was geared lower for more torque and heavier springs to increase the load rating to one ton. Even then Ford didn't supply a full body, just the front fenders and hood.  The buyer had to supply a body himself or send the chassis to a body manufacturer to fit the body type of his choice. Ford did start supplying a full body until 1922, a steel cab with a wood bed.  In 1925 Ford finally offered a light duty pickup body on the Model T chassis.  

By the time the one ton Model AA came out in 1927 Ford offered several body styles.  An abandoned Model AA is the subject of my latest pen drawing.  The truck in my drawing is equipped with a wood bed with removable wood sides, I don't know if this was a bed supplied by Ford.

"Abandoned Model AA Ford Truck" Prints Available

This was a fun drawing to create and I guess you could say I've now got a series of pen drawings of abandoned Ford trucks.

(the original drawing is sold, but prints are available, click on the image)

The Allure of Abandoned Vehicles

 I've mentioned this on this blog before but I love abandoned old vehicles as an art subject but I'm not sure why.  Sure, I love old cars, trucks and tractors.  In my opinion classic and antique vehicles are far more aesthetically pleasing than modern ones.  Sure, modern designers are very limited nowadays because they have to work within a streamlined envelope to minimize fuel consumption at speed, I even acknowledge that modern cars are superior in every way to classics...except in appearance. But that's beside the point. Why are rusty, abandoned wrecks so interesting?  I guess it's the combination of classic design and the aesthetics of imperfection, often referred to as "wabisabi" (ya, I know this is a westernized term for an Asian concept.)  That's my best guess anyway, and is also the subject of the two pieces of art I made this week.

"Abandoned 1959 Ford Fairlane" pen and watercolor, 8" x 10"

This line and wash painting is based on a photograph I took in a wrecking yard nearby that sadly is no longer existing, currently being replaced with housing developments. 

"Abandoned 1965 Ford Pickup" Prints Available

This detailed pen line drawing is based on a couple different photos and my imagination.  The 1965 Ford pickup had a background I did like a lot except for the dying tree, so I pulled a derelict wood barn from another photograph and the background to the right of the truck is from my imagination.

Getting back into Pen Drawing

 I took a sharp turn from the impressionist and abstract acrylic painting and picked up the pen this week. 

"Rural Horse Shed Pen Dwg" Prints available

To warm up my pen drawing skills I started with this small sketchbook drawing of a simple rural landscape.  The drawing is based on a photograph I took in Eden, Utah in Ogden Valley during autumn. The old horse shed appears to be no longer used as there is no path leading up to it and it's somewhat in disrepair.  I modified the composition a bit from the photograph by moving the light colored tree to the left so the shed overlapped it.

"Abandoned 1963 Ford Farm Truck" Prints Available"

For my second drawing this week I chose a more complicated composition and drew it a bit larger.  I don't remember where I took the reference before but it was basically a ready made subject, I changed very little from the photograph.  As usual, I'm never sure what I find appealing about such subjects but these old abandoned trucks just call to me to be painted or drawn, especially when surrounded by such interesting debris. 

A Six Day Blue Art Challenge

 Last week I participated in an art challenge put on by an administrator of an art forum.  The challenge was to produce one piece of art, start to finish, each day for six days and each piece must contain the color blue.

"Small Autumn Tree Study" acrylic, 8" X 6"

"Autumn Bushes Study" acrylic 6" X 8"

For the first two days I kept it simple and just painted two small acrylic autumn landscape studies with blue skies.  The first one is an autumn version of a summer landscape I did for the green challenge, the other just on an old photograph I took in Wanship, Utah.

"Tall Blue Trees" acrylic, 12" X 9"

For the third day I revisited my abstract trees series.  I started by adding texture using pieces of tissue paper wrinkled and fixed to the surface using gel medium.  Then I applied high flow paint and water and let it drip, then refined the composition and colors using heavy body paint applied with brushes and then added a bit of line work using acrylic markers.

"A Big Blue Barn" acrylic 9" X 12"

This one is a little out of character for me.  Ya, it's a rural landscape, and it's an autumn scene, but I've never painted a barn blue before, I don't believe I've ever seen a blue barn but I wanted more than just a blue sky for this one to comply with the theme of the challenge. The reference was a photograph I took in Liberty, Utah.

"Abandoned Blue Chevy Dump Truck" acrylic 11" X 14"

It's been a while since I've painted an abandoned vehicle so I picked one for the fifth day.  The reference was actually green but it's no big deal to make it blue.  The truck in the reference was actually in a junkyard in Nephi, Utah, I put it in a field backed with bushes.

"Blue 1935 Buick Sedan" pastel 12" X 16"

For the last day I really pushed my skills.  This painting was popular with the other participants but I'm not especially happy with it.  I decided to use pastel instead of acrylic for this one.  The painting is very loosely based on a vintage black and white photograph of a 1935 Buick driving in traffic on a highway somewhere in California. I focused on the Buick, removed the traffic and modified the background.

I've been doing a lot of challenges lately and am now rather burnt out on them.  I think this last one especially pushed me.  Time to do something a little different I think, maybe some pen drawing.

More Experimenting With Line and Wash

 I picked up the pens and watercolor brushes again last week.  I decided to try doing things just a bit different, play with different techniques, change the amount of inking vs what I'd normally do.  Here are the results.

Abandoned 1950 Ford Truck, pen and watercolor, 8" X 10"

This is a front view of an abandoned vintage 1950 Ford truck sitting in a field of grass and weeds.  In particular in the foreground I experimented with using salt and drips to creating interesting texture.

Abandoned Chicken Coop, pen and watercolor 8" X 10"

This painting is based on a scene near my home that I often walk by when I walk down to the park.  There are still pockets of horse property in my suburban neighborhood and this is one of them, this disused structure however appears to have been used as a chicken coop, that's my guess anyway.  My experiment on this one is to use only small amounts of line in the foliage, rather than identify all the foliage with pen I let the watercolor paint itself do most of the talking.

Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020 - Day 19-21

Again, three more days, three more sketches.  I think this is the longest I've ever stuck to a challenge like this.  It hasn't been easy and it has eaten into my painting time but I think it's been worth.

Day 19 - Abandoned Dodge Truck - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

Prints Available

I decided to stick with a fine pen for this one, a Copic Multiliner .05 except for the darkest parts where I used a .1.  This means all shading was done with hatching.  I found this old abandoned Dodge farm truck in the rural central Utah town of Loa.

Day 20 - Abandoned Country Store - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

I stuck with the fine pen for this one but then colored it with watercolor washes. The old country store actually exists, at least it did the last time I visited Boulder City, Utah. The vintage tow truck out back was taken from another reference photo.

Day 21 - Winter Barn and Fence - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

Prints Available

Time was short this morning so I had to keep today's sketch simple, so I went with a winter scene, the fact that most of the ground is covered in snow helped keep it minimalist.  The composition as it sat in the refence photo was almost perfect, everything leading to the focal point, the abandoned barn.  I especially liked that wrecked fence gate in the foreground, it pointed right up the snow ridge and to the barn, I did add a little tuft of grass in the lower left to point to the fence.  I found this scene in the small rural farming community of Eden, Utah in Ogden Valley.

Another Abandoned Truck

Please forgive me for painting yet another abandoned truck.  I'm not sure what it is about the rusty, dilapidated state of vehicles in the state of being recovered by nature that I find so visually appealing.  However I appear to not be the only one, I've done fairly well in sales of abandoned truck paintings, as well as abandoned cars and tractors.

Derelict Chevy

I found this truck on the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah during the Antique Power Show.  The truck is a 1935 Chevy which is unusual.  Even though Chevrolet outsold Ford for most of the 1930's relatively few Chevy's have survived.  I painted this almost entirely with palette knives to lend it that highly textured, semi-abstract look which you can see better in the details below.

I painted this on a deep cradled panel and painted the sides black which means this painting can be hung without a frame, or even set on a shelf or table.

Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020 - Day 3-5

Day 3 - Dilapidated Abandoned Barn - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

Prints Available

The day 3 sketch is a graphite pencil sketch of a dilapidated barn based on a photo I took in Ogden Valley, in the town of Eden, Utah.  This one might make a good painting.

Day 4 - Abandoned Ford Deliver Truck - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

Prints Available

The day 4 sketch is an abandoned antique Ford delivery truck rusting away in the weeds in pen and watercolor. Based on a photo I took at the Antique Power Show in Wallsburg, Utah.

Day 5 - Rural Farm Landscape - Daily Sketch Challenge May 2020

The day 5 sketch is simple pen sketch of a rural farm scene to test the concept for a painting. Based on a photo I took in Oakley, Utah.

More Demo Videos

Another week on YouTube and three more videos to share with you.

This one is a little different in that it's a sketch instead of a painting.  I use a Copic Multiliner pen and Tombow brush pens to do a simple black and white sketch of an old, abandoned Chevy farm truck.  I saw and photographed this truck in Wallsburg, Utah.

I stepped up the complexity on this one a bit by adding a couple barns to make this a rural landscape.  Structural objects with well defined shapes can actually be a bit of a challenge to paint with palette knives.  I also approached the process just a bit different.  I did make a brush underpainting, intstead I blocked the painting in using a more thin layer of paint using the knife.  The painting is loosely based on a photo I took in Spring City, Utah.

This one bumped up the difficulty level considerably.   Barns are relatively simple shapes, but old vehicles are quite complex.  I decided to take that challenge on anyway by painting an abandoned early 1950's Chevy truck in an open grassy field.  Barns are primarily straight lines and very geometric without many details, whereas an old truck can have organic curves and lots of details.  This one really pushed my skills, especially since I had to do it in one sitting under a camera. The truck that served as the model for this composition was based on a photo I took at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah during the Antique Power Show.

That's this week's videos, I hope you watch and enjoy them.  If you do please click the "like" button, and if you want to be alerted to new videos when they come out hit the subscribe button and the "bell" notification icon.  Also, I'd very much appreciate any comments.  Thanks.

No Prints, No More

It's been more than a year since my last blog post.  I had stopped blogging for two reasons.  One, I couldn't tell that me or anybody else was really benefitting from it, and two I got distracted by other things, namely social media and photo based art.  I have now decided to repent, at least to some extent.

The big news is I've closed my Fine Art America/Pixels (FAA) account.  I was using FAA as my website and my print-on-demand service.  I've now redirected my domain back to this blog and for the foreseeable future will not offer my art print-on-demand. I won't go into detail the reasons why but suffice it to say I don't feel FAA serves my needs anymore and I also feel it was a distraction from pursuits that for me are probably of more value. I would like to thank those few that did purchase prints of my art on FAA.

My original paintings and drawings are still available.  You can either contact me via email or shop on ebay where I have many pieces listed.

Since I've closed my FAA account I can turn some of my focus back to this blog. I actually plan to start blogging again though I can't say for sure how regular I'll be about it, I'll shoot for once/week but won't make any promises.  I'll also gradually work on cleaning stuff up here.  The portfolio pages are out of date and I think many links are dead, please be patient, this is going to take some time.

I suppose since this is an art blog I should post some art.  This is the latest artsy thing I've done, just a quick charcoal and pastel sketch based on a photo I took on a recent visit to the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

Keeping it Subtle

Click on image to enlarge

"Bygones"

$160

12" X 16", Charcoal and soft pastel on paper

While I do enjoy drawing with charcoal I kind of miss color while doing so.  If you look at my paintings you'll notice I tend to get pretty colorful with them much of the time.  I've added color to charcoal paintings in the last by first applying a watercolor wash and adding a few pastel pencil marks at the end.  I decided to try something a little different this time.  I did start out intending to do just a straight up charcoal drawing but as I went along I couldn't help imagine it with some color.  First I just applied some ochre tinted charcoal to the foreground but that wasn't enough.  So I got out my pastel painting travel box and picked out a few pastels with grayish tones that fit the theme of the drawing.  I was concerned that the Arches hot pressed watercolor paper I was using wouldn't have enough tooth to hold the pastel so I made sure to keep a light touch.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the paper take the pastel quite well, though only light layering is possible.  Just the fact that the pastel was being mixed with charcoal kept the colors on the gray side but I made sure to use colors that would not overpower the drawing.  Bright, saturated colors alongside charcoal just wouldn't look right, at least not with this subject.  I'm pretty happy with how this worked out, I'm sure I'll mix pastel and charcoal more often in the future.

As for the subject, it's an early 1970's Ford heavy truck.  I'm not sure exactly which year or model but it had a gross weight rating sticker on it for 21,000 lbs. so it was pretty heavy duty.  I found it sitting in a field on a ranch or farm in Leamington, Utah.  Leamington is a very small town in west central Utah yet I enjoyed exploring it very much, it had a few abandoned tractors, trucks and cars as well as just having the general appeal of a rural town out in the middle of nowhere surrounded by open space.  I saw very little movement while I was out there and heard even less, the kind of place I think I'd like to retire to.  As for the title, "Bygones" I'm honestly not sure where it came from or how it applies to this drawing.  Sometimes the title for a piece comes to me before I even start working on it, however more often than not I don't come up with a title until I'm finished and need to post it online, that's what happened to me with this one.  While I was uploading the file the title just kind of popped into my head, I'm not sure what it means but for some reason it seems perfect.

Adding Some Color

Back in October 2017 I started to participate in Inktober, the annual social media event that encourages artists to produce one piece of art per day using ink. I only made it about two weeks before I abandoned it but that was better than previous years.  Since then I've had these pen sketches laying about and I decided recently to add some color to a couple of them.

Click on image to enlarge

"Abandoned Ford Flatbed Truck"

Pen and watercolor on paper, 6" X 7"
Original - $35

This first one is a 1935 Ford flatbed truck left to rot out in a field in the high desert of northern Utah, you know, one of my favorite subjects.  The sketch is based on a photo I took on a ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

Click on image to enlarge

"The Old Red Farmall"

Pen and watercolor on paper, 2 1/2" X 3 1/2"

Sold

This second sketch is a late 1960's vintage red Farmall tractor.  It's based on a photo I took somewhere along a rural back road in northern Utah but I don't remember exactly where.  It was in very good condition for it's age so I assume it's been restored, probably only does parade duty now.  This sketch is in a size referred to as an ACEO, (Art Card Editions and Originals) that same size as hobby collector cards so that makes it especially collectible, right?

Green and Out

Continuing my palette knife series, this time an abandoned 1957 Chevy heavy truck left to rot in a grassy field viewed from the front.

Click on image to enlarge

"Green and Out"

12" X 12", Acrylic on 2" deep cradled panel
Original - $150
Prints Available

I again I pushed the abstraction on this one, almost as much as I did in "Red Abstract Tractor"  In some ways that's a bigger challenge on a truck, there are more details that need to remain recognizable, I still want someone to be able to recognize the make and year of the truck, using a palette knife to paint sure makes that a challenge.

I painted this one in a square format, not only is the square perfect for these head on vehicle views but I just happened to have a deep cradled panel on hand that was 12x12 and wanted to use it, I painted the sides black.  What I like about deep cradled panels is not only can they be hung without a frame but since the sides are perfectly flat unlike gallery wrapped canvases they can just be set down on a shelf or any other flat, horizontal surface.

Here are a couple close up of areas of the painting so you can see the texture and knife strokes.

Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

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Farm Memories

It seems like old farms in the rural areas of Utah and I'm sure other places are almost like outdoor museums displaying historic relics of times gone by.  You'll find everything from horse drawn plows to tractors from the 1960's, manure spreaders from the 1920's to grain trucks from the 70's and everything in between.  Sometimes you'll come across items that aren't even farm implements such as antique gas pumps or manual washing machines and more.  Of course my favorite "farm finds" are old trucks and tractors.

"Farm Memories"

16" X 20", Acrylic on panel

I found this old Chevy flatbed truck in this painting in the small Sanpete County town of Fountain Green.  It was actually part of a display that could be called an outdoor museum of sorts.  Not only were tractors displayed with it but an old wood barn was there covered in old signs, license plates and hubcaps.

Cool, huh?  This is just one of those special treats you just might find while wandering the back roads.

The painting was done entirely with a palette knife.  On the body I tried to keep the palette knife strokes simple, just lay them down and leave them alone, it created a bit of a patchwork effect yet the form of the body is still quite clear.  I just love these kinds of visual tricks that make an abstract application of paint look like something recognizable.

A Rare Winter Drawing

Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a fan of winter.  Short days and inclement weather keep me indoors.  Not that I mind being indoors, just not this much, I need some outdoor time too and during the winter I get very little.  I'll admit, I have a very low tolerance for cold, freezing especially so it doesn't have to be dark or snowing or even windy to keep me indoors, just cold. It's probably for those reasons that winter makes a rare appearance in my art, this is one of those rare occurrences.

"Snowbound GMC"

6" X 6", charcoal on paper

I discovered this little scene with the old snow covered GMC grain truck in the small, rural town of Eden, Utah a couple years ago.  The background was actually cluttered with modern vehicles in a parking lot, I changed it to a simple natural background.  The dimensions on this one are 6" X 6", a small a square, I might make a series of drawings in this format.

A Variety of Charcoal Studies

I'm still very much focused on charcoal.  I find working with charcoal to be both fun and educational.  Charcoal sketches are a good way to test ideas for compositions before committing to paint, but they are works of art in their own right.  The last two weeks (yes, I missed last week) I've experimented with a variety of subjects.

"Roots II"

12" X 9", Charcoal on Paper

This is the second in my series of roots studies.  Not only was it a study in roots and nature it was an experiment in charcoal technique.  I wanted to do a better job of getting rid of the little white specks of paper showing through so I did a lot more blending and used more powdered charcoal.

"Barn Study I"

9" X 12", Charcoal on Paper

Another series begins, hopefully.  Well, as much as I love old, wood barns and rural landscapes I'm pretty confident I'll do more.  While "Roots II" was pretty good I felt maybe it was a little overworked so my goal with "Barn Study I" was to dial that back and bit and still have the same effect.  I treated this one in a more sketchy way, working faster and not so deliberate about shapes and details, I think it worked pretty well.  I discovered my finger makes a great blender for large areas.  I've formed a new basic technique.  First I go over an area with the woodless charcoal pencil creating the general tones I'm after.  Then I use a Q-tip to apply powdered charcoal over the area blending it as I go then I do further blending with my finger.

"Truck Study I"

8" X 10", Charcoal on paper

And finally we have an abandoned old truck, a 1946 Ford to be more exact.  This was drawing practice as much as charcoal and composition practice.  This scene is partially from a photo reference taken in a small rural Utah town and partially from my imagination.  The truck in the photo didn't have a bed and the tree was farther back and didn't overlap the truck.  The rest is pretty much my invention.  Since this one required more exact drawing it took longer but I still tried to keep it fairly sketchy. 

Stay tuned, I'm sure there will be more to come.