Old Truck in Front of Barn

Ok, first of all, let me say that this is still a work in progress.  Secondly, let me tell you a little story about this.

A colleague of mine, knowing my propensity for all things rusty and wheeled, sent me a picture he took of this truck.  I couldn't help but attempt a painting of it.  I drew it, and painted it.  It looked horrible.  I couldn't stand it.  Even my colleague looked at it and asked if I had regressed in my painting.

I literally started pouring on the water and rubbed most of the paint off the truck.  Having done that, I was left with a painting that still had color, but which was infused with tiny white dots where the paint had been taken off.  It still looked horrible.  So, here is what I decided to do.

I admitted to myself that I'd wasted a sheet of paper and used it for some practice.  I stood, instead of sitting, and started swabbing on paint, not worrying about color or exact placement of paint.  In short, painting more loosely.  You can see I got some red on the roof of the bar,  a big swab of blue on the side of the barn, some green for trees, and yellows, reds and greens for grass.  While still wet, I just flicked in a few weeds.  I touched up the paint on the truck, and POW, a huge difference. I couldn't believe the transformation of this picture. It went from something that was totally drab and blasé to something in which the truck actually stands out in the picture.

I know that I still have a little bit of work to do painting but I couldn't believe how much better it look when I stopped trying to paint so tightly.

I hope you all enjoy it I am going to be posting the finished painting soon. Thank you.

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

Drawn By Lindy, Painted By Michael

Lindy was so proud to draw this truck for me.  I drew one for him too, and we sat down together to paint them.  As you can see, this truck has an engine in the front and one in the back.