Old Dodge

This painting for sale. 6x9  $15

This isn't a picture I planned on posting this week.  I had been working on this at home and had been taking my time doing it.  For some reason, I brought it into work with me, and then felt compelled to finish it here.

I've do this with just about every painting I do, and I thought I might share with you all.  My friend, Bob Ross, always says to make up a story about what it is that you are  painting.  When you do this, you will create a better connection to the picture.

This car is obviously sitting on a plain somewhere,  I imagine it is South Dakota.  The summer is gone, fall is in there air.  There hasn't been much rain for the past several months and the grasses are going dormant just before winter sets in.  Here the car sits, just rusting away out in a field.  Probably there are animal trails all around it.

Well, for what it is, here it is.  Hope you all enjoy it.

Old Blue Truck

SOLD!

Ok, so I tried to do something that may not have worked out quite the way I wanted it to.  Then again, some parts of this painting are brilliant 

So, I started with a picture of this truck.  Someone had photoshpped it so that the only thing in color was the truck.  It absolutely burst off the page because it was a beautiful blue color.  (Well, actually it was blue, yellow, red and rust, but for the ease of this commentary, I'll just call it blue.)  The truck was sitting in the wood with tree trunks and branches all around.  I didn't think the background was all that exiting, but it made the truck jump out so much that I had to try it.  Well, as you may have guessed, I didn't use their background, I used my own.  Yes, thats right, just made it up on the fly.  I wanted to make my background a little darker around the truck and a little lighter everywhere else, but it didn't quite work out that way.  Oh, well, there is always next time.  One think I did  do, and you will have to look closely to see it is make the grey in the background more blue-grey, and make the foreground more red-grey.  If you look closely you can see it.  I did it because the blue makes things look more distant, and the red, more close.

As for the truck itself, I think its pretty good.  I did a lot of layers to give the truck the kind of mottled look.  The first was just water to get everything wet.  Then came yellows and reds.  Finally, blues on top. I tried to allow for highlights along where there were bends in the metal, but I didn't work out well this time and I quickly abandoned that plan.  As you look at the truck, take not of the lining.  Instead of making lines at the end with a pen, i actually used paint and brush and painted it.  Some of them look a little better than others, but in general, I think all the lined came out pretty good.   I like this painting and already have it hanging in my office.  Next week, I start a new painting.  Enjoy

Another Old Truck

THIS PAINTING SOLD

Another old truck. And surprise, its the same one as before.  The previous one is gone, off to someone else to look after it and I liked it so much I had to have one of my own.  Thus, this second painting of it.  I did a few things differently on this one.

First, i tried to make the hill on the right hand side a little more mottled.  It looks like there is some texture to it now.  Additionally I made it a little bluer.  It really makes it look like it recedes off in the distance.  I also tried to put in another level of weeds around the truck.  I thought this would really make it look like the back is way back and the front much closer.  I don't know how successful that was, but I don't think it takes away from the picture either.

The truck is mostly the same.  As I learned to paint shadows, I learned that they should be a blue grey and laid over top of the underlying color.  I 'm not sure that that really makes for the best shadow areas. on this one, I tried to just put in a little darker more intense coloring in the corners so it looks like a bit of a shadow but nothing too harsh.  Looking at it, I probably could have been even more aggressive with the color.

All in all, I am really proud of this one.  I think it is at least as good as the first one.  If anyone wants to buy, I'll sell.  Just send an email and we can talk terms.

Old Truck in a Field

SOLD!

This was a great picture to paint.  I lived doing it.  The picture I took it from was really dark, and I wasn't sure I would be able to lighten it up and still keep the same look.  I think I did a pretty good job.

Well, I tried to make the colors of the truck and the grasses in front of it brighter and more intense that those at the top.  That pulled the truck foreword in the picture.  It really does look like the field in the top right hand corder is a long way off.  Also, I tried the trick with the ground in between the rows of vines and the vines themselves.  They are darker the closer you get to the bottom of the picture, indicating that they are closer to you.

The chrome was a challenge.  How do you paint old rusty chrome.  Well, the answer for me was not too.  I merely made the chrome stilghtly different colors away from what I thought would be the most reflective part.  So between the top of the hood and the diamond in the middle of the grill, the chrome is brightest (again, allowing that to seem further toward the viewer).  As the chrome goes back from there, it gets darker, and of course as it goes down it gets darker.  If you look closely, you can see different colors in the chrome.

I tried to paint the body of the truck in different sections as they would have been put together.  The door, the cab, the bonnet, the fenders, the grill, each got painted at different times.  I was hoping they would come out slightly different colors to make it seem as though the paint is oxidizing at slightly different rates.  You will have be the judge.

My favorite part of this painting is the big dark front wheel.  It turned out great.  The color, the shadow, even the hub.  I love it.

Hope you all enjoy viewing this as much as

Broken Down and Rusting

Firstly, let me apologize for the quality of this image.  The size of the painting is larger than my scanner can hold so I had to snap a pic with my camera.  Obviously it didn't do quite as good a job as the scanner.

I've had a book of great pictures from across America for quite a while now.  One of the pictures had a truck in a field in front of a barn.  I like the truck a lot, the barn, not so much.  So here is my take on the truck.

When I drew the truck, I was thinking to myself, just dont screw it up.  When I had finished I thought I did a pretty good job, and wanted to take a picture so I could use the image again.  Then I though, if i can draw it once, I ought to be able to draw it again.  So I forged ahead with painting.  Then as I was painting the parts of the truck I kept thinking, don't screw it up its a long process to get back to where you are.  But in the end,  like the way it turned out.  I might to another one of these, but it wont be for a while.  I think I'll have more confidence in painting it knowing that I've already been able to do it once.


Painting is 11x15
For Sale - $20 - free shipping