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.

Small Works

While I continue to work on automotive paintings which tend to be on the larger side, (for me anyway) I do enjoy painting the occasional small landscape painting.  Actually I've been doing quite a few small paintings lately, not only that, I've uncovered some older paintings during my studio clean up that stand the test of time though I had forgotten about them. I've created a "Small Works" section in my Etsy store for all these small, affordable paintings. The sizes range from 5" X 7" up to 9" X 12" and prices range from $50 up to $145.  If one of my paintings puts a smile on your face well that's a small price to pay to have something hanging in your home that put's a smile on your face every day.

Small Works

Click on the image above to see the full collection of small works currently available in my Etsy store. I'll be adding new paintings often, in fact daily for a few days and then probably at least weekly as I make more.

Here are a few examples from the collection. (click on the caption below the each image to purchase).

Into Autumn

October Field

Prints Available

Blue 1936 Ford Flatbed Truck

That One Distinctive Feature

Most classic cars have one, that one design element that immediately tells you what make, model and year the car is without seeing anything else.  The 1959 Cadillac tailfin with it's bullet taillight lenses, the 1957 Chevy headlight with the vent screen in it's surround, and the 1971-73 Buick Riviera's with their boat tails.

Boat Tail Buick

Acrylic, 16" X 20" on 1/8" panel

(click on image to purchase)

These unique design elements are what I hope to focus on in my close crop paintings like this one of the aforementioned early 1970's Buick Riviera.  Actually the whole car is distinctively designed from front to rear.  I chose to focus on the boat tail in this painting because that is my favorite element.  The profile of these cars is nice as well, but I'm not too much of a fan of the front end, the design makes it look like it has the overbite of a great white shark.

I have to admit though I don't hate the front end as much as I used to, it's grown on me a bit.  If one this nice showed up in my garage I definitely wouldn't kick it out anyway.

Here are some close up detail photos of the painting so you can get a good look at the texture.  (click on the images to enlarge them.)

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.

My New Etsy Store

It's been a while again, I haven't posted since I closed my print shop.  This is due to a combination of factors including simply my general laziness.  All that will change soon however.  Big changes in my life are coming that should result in my having much more content to blog about. Please stay tuned.

In the mean time I do have one big announcement.  I've opened an Etsy store and this will be the primary platform for sales of my originals.  At least for now I'll continue to list paintings on ebay but there will be other stuff there as well. My Etsy store will be stocked only with my original art, landscape paintings, vehicle paintings, sketches and drawings.  The store is not fully stocked yet but I'll be adding to it regularly.

Please stop by and take a look around

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DavidKingStudioStore

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.