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 Abandoned Trucks

 I finished two abandoned truck paintings this week using my new style using drips, splatters and lines.  One of them is my first heavy truck painting, a 1959 Mack B-61 dump truck and then a couple 1946 Ford pickups left out in tall grass.

"Abandoned Yellow Mack Dump Truck"
Acrylic on canvas, 16" X 16" X 1.5"

"Abandoned Ford Pickups"
Acrylic on canvas, 18" X 24" X 1.5"

Playing with Paint Pens

 I've had a couple dozen or so Posca acrylic paint pens for a while now but only used them to embellish other art, recently I decided to use them as the primary medium in some sketches, below are a couple examples.

"Abandoned Chevy Dump Truck Sketch"
8x10, multimedia on paper
Click on image to purchase

I used acrylic inks to tone and texture 140 lb Arches hot press watercolor paper in a block before laying out and coloring with the paint pens. Since I have a limited range of colors I had to be a bit more creative with the color, which I kind of enjoy anyway since my objective is never to be realistic. I kept the strokes open for the same reason, I just like the energy squiggly, zig zaggy, open strokes give, this also serves to visually mix the colors a bit.  The subject is a 1946 Chevy dump truck from a reference photo I took at the Erickson Ranch in Wallsburg, Utah.

"Red Model T Ford Hot Rod Sketch"
8x10, multimedia on paper
Click on image to purchase

I used the same paper for this one but used watercolor and gouache for the toning and texturing. I went even more colorful and sketchy with this Model T Ford V8 equipped hot rod I photographed at a local car show.

Since making these sketches I've picked up a bunch more Posca paint pens, in fact I now own all of the regular colors, they were that fun to use.  I've also started a couple new sketches but on canvas paper toned with acrylic paint, hopefully I'll have those ready to blog about next week.

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.

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"

Back to the Cars...I Mean Trucks

 I've been experimenting with a slightly different style using thick paint and brushes instead of knives on landscapes lately, I figured it was time to try it out on a car...I mean truck.

"Blue 1940 Ford Pickup" Acrylic, 12" X 16"

This was actually a paint-over, meaning I had painted this years ago but wasn't happy with the painting so I painted over the original painting in an attempt to recover it.  I had painted it with knives so the texture was especially thick so I had to sand it down first but I left enough of the original painting to guide me for the paint-over.  The main problem with the original painting is the drawing was way off.  While the drawing still isn't perfect it's not bad and far better than it was before.

I'm finding now that with this technique I'm working on I'm able to get quite a bit of texture without using knives, this might become my go to style from now on.

Speaking of thick brushwork texture you might want to check out this blog post by James Gurney about The National Gallery using OTC scans to assist in restoring a painting by the artist Adolphe Monticelli who was French impressionist and even painted with Cezanne.  After seeing the video in the blog post I had to look this artist up.  His brush work is very aggressive, highly textural, making his paintings almost abstract, I find it very interesting even though I'm not a fan of his color palette or compositions.

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.