Angel Statue

Here is my latest painting.  It is another statue.  This one of an angel.  She has obviously been outside for a long time and has moss growing on her in places.  I've added just enough details to her body and wings to give her form, but the overall impression I wanted someone to take away is that of her have sat outside for a long time.

I started painting her with a base color of payne's grey for her body, then slowly added in some van dyke brown in some shadowy areas, or anywhere that I wanted to make her a bit warmer.  (as the payne's grey can get a little cold sometime)  I just gave indications of some shadow lines on her body and her wings.  They give just enough detail.  I kept her face as clean and as bright as I could.  I wanted it to be a bit lighter than everything else on the paintings.  This was to make her face the focal point of this painting.   I'll be t you did it subconsciously.  You looked at the entire painting, but your eyes kept coming back to her face.

I'm happy with this painting.  I might go back and make the background even a little darker, which would make her a little lighter by contrast, and therefore jump off the page a little more.  But if I never get around to doing that, I'm happy with what I have here.

If you have not seen my video of this painting,  I've got a link below.  Thank you, and I hope you enjoy it.

Truckin' through a field

For some reason, I felt the need to paint another old truck.  I just cant seem to get enough of rust and faded paint.  So here it is, an old Ford sitting in a field.  It looks like its been here for about a dozen years or so.  No wheels at all, so it is never gonna move.

I love the effect of the distant trees in this painting, and I can live with the sky.  I only wish I had painted the truck in my usual way.  One piece of sheet metal at a time.  It usually allows for nice breaks in the painting and I don't have to paint the joints between the panels.

Well, I like this and even the field seems to have a lot of texture to it. Enjoy.

Oh, and by the way, it comes in video too.  Check it out.

Another One??? Really??

This painting for sale.  6x8 $15

You love it, you know you do, you can't wait to see the next old, decrepit car sitting in a field.  Well, your wish is my command.

To be honest, I'm not completely sure what car this is, but I'm sure its pretty old.  Its got a lot of weeds growing around it, and it looks like one of its tires has fallen off.  It's got a yellow license plate, obviously out of date.  Hmmm who could have had yellow plates back in the day?  Well, it really doesn't matter.  The car has found a nice home under an old tree.  Hope nobody totally forgets about this old car.

This one, and yesterdays, are the first old cars I have really done with any color (other than rust).  It got me thinking, how come I don't see more color on old cars.  After doing a little research I found that most cars like the ones I paint have a fair amount of paint on them.  I've just been so focused on the rust, I neglected to see it.  So, from now on, when I paint an old car or truck, I'm gonna do a better job of incorporating some of the cars paint.  That doen't mean there wont be a fair amount of rust, but there is definately gonna be a bit more color.

Hope you enjoy this little painting.  I had a ball painting it.

Another Old Truck

So I thought I would let you all see the steps I take to create a painting.  We'll start with a drawing and go through the final product.  I've kind of wanted to do this for a while now.  I think it is much more interesting than just seeing the final painting.  I apologize for the quality, or lack there of, some of the pictures.  instead of scanning all the picture, i just snapped a photo with my phone (wow, doesn't that sound funny?).  While I did use the flash on it, and the picture is under a light, I somehow still get grey spots on the photos.  So, without further adieu, here we go.

Here we are with the drawing.  Not too  much detail.  The truck has a lot of detail, but the foreground and background not too much.  I go back and forth between wanting more, and wanting less.

This is the first layer of paint.  It is this layer that will add the color that you will see on the truck.  You can see the reds, yellows, blues and greens.  Even though more coats of paint will go over the top, this layer will always be able to be seen.

Here is the second layer of paint on the truck body.  At this point I need to decide if I like the color or not.  If not, I'll add another layer to change the color.  What do you think from the final painting, did I add a third layer?

Here I've added a blue sky and some trees in the background.  Notice that the truck still isn't done.  What I have left is mostly detail work.  I like to leave that till the end.  Since a lot of the detailing is at or around the edges of the truck, I want to get the mid-ground and the foreground in place so that I can paint over it if I need to.

Nearly done now.  You can see I've go the grill done, and the shadowing in the cab, wheel wells and around the grill.  I've put some shadowing on the truck itself.  The last detail is to put in some weeds in the foreground.  Adding the weeds will help to push the truck back in the picture a bit.  This is also a good time to mention the red in the foreground.  I think I've mentioned it before, but red tints make things look closer, blue tints make things look further away.  Just look at the mass of trees int he middle of the picture.  They are clearly bluer than the trees around them and look much further away.

This painting for sale.  9x12  $30

And here is the finished product.  The truck sitting in a field rusting away with some weeds growing around it.  Hope  you all enjoy it.

Here is what I am working on

Just  little preview.  I've begun working on my next painting.  No, I don't really want to be known as the painter of trucks, but I don really like old trucks.  I apologize for the greying of this picture.  My scanner bed is just a bit too small for the size of paper that I paint on.  Where it comes off the glass, a little greying appears.  The further away fromt he glass, the more grey.  I might blue this up a bit more, though I really like the way it looks right now.  I'm also considering doing the background in sepia tone.  My hope would be that it would really make the truck stand out.  I've still got all the shadowing to do on the truck too.  Hopefully next time you see this truck you will see the WOW Factor.  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

A Pair of Knockers

I thought these would be a bit easier than they turned out to be.  I don't know what happened to the blue knocker on top.  up close, its a bit much to behold, but actually if you look from afar, its not too bad.  I started with an old rusty door knocker on what was a grey/blue door.  As I drew it, i thought i did a pretty good job of it, but as the paint went on, it got a little more odd with each color.  If you are wondering if it is a man or a lion, so am I.  The picture I took it from was a weird amalgam of the two.

The second one is a Lion head holding a ring in its mouth.  I think that is much easier to see.  I think I did a much better job on this one.  I am even kind of proud of the chipped away paint on the door which exposes the wood behind.

Hope you enjoy them.